Hidden Gender Roles

Within Tennessee Williams's story about love and abuse within marriage and challenging familial ties, there lie three very different characters that all see the world in vastly different ways. These members of a family that operate completely outside of our generation’s norms, are constantly unsure of themselves and their station within the binary not only of their familial unit, but within the gender binary that is established for them to follow. Throughout the story of the strange family, each character goes through a different arch that changes them irrevocably whether it is able to be perceived or not by those around them. The only male, Stanley is initially the macho force in the home who controls everything without question. He has

Throughout history empowerment and marginalization has primarily been based on gender. In the play A Streetcar Named Desire, this idea of empowerment is strongly flaunted. Tennessee Williams’ characters, primarily Stanley, Blanche, Mitch, and Stella, conform the expected roles of men and women at the time. Although World War Two temporarily allowed women a place in the work force, they were dismissed from such empowerment when the war came to a close. Characters in A Streetcar Named Desire are accurate representations of the social historical context of that time. The power struggle between Stanley and Blanche conveys dominant ideas about gender such as the primitive nature, aggression, and

In Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams explores the internal conflict of illusion versus reality through the characters. Humans often use illusion to save us pain and it allows us to enjoy pleasure instead. However, as illusion clashes with reality, one can forget the difference between the two. When people are caught up in their illusions, eventually they must face reality even if it is harsh. In the play, Blanche suffers from the struggle of what is real and what is fake because of the difficult events of her past. Blanche comes to her sister Stella seeking aid because she has lost her home, her job, and her family. To deal with this terrible part of her life, she uses fantasy to escape her dreadful reality. Blanche’s embracement of a fantasy world can be categorized by her attempts to revive her youth, her relationship struggles, and attempts to escape her past.

The role of women in the 1950 was seen to be repressive and constrictive in many ways. Society placed high importance and many expectations for these women on behavior at home as well as in public. Women were supposed to fulfil certain roles, such as a caring mother, a diligent homemaker, and an obedient wife. The perfect mother was supposed to stay home and nurture so society would accept them. In fact, even if a woman wanted to voice an opinion, her lack of education would not allow it . The play A Streetcar Named Desire is set during the late 1940’s and early 1950’s period where it describes the decline of a fading Southern belle named Blanche DuBois. The women in this play are represented to be dependent and submissive in nature and in addition they are also seen to be manipulative. However, Williams has also portrayed these women to be independent and taking control of the situation. This can be seen through the use of the main characters

Within the space of a single chapter Levi details the loss of identity and all elements of personhood from the prisoners that entered at the beginning of the chapter, as their clothing and animalistic presentation effectively reduces them to little more than objects in the grasp of the Nazis. This is extremely disturbing, as a reader, to comprehend, and lies in stark converse with Blanche’s presentation in the closing chapter of streetcar, within which, clothes are instead bestowed by Williams upon blanche in order to emphasise her epitomisation of a perfected form of humanity, or at least to raise her above those who view her sexuality and promiscuity as worthy of accusation, or would afford her poor, perhaps even dehumanising treatment as a result. In this way, both authors utilise costume or clothing to portray their characters in different lights, however, although the direct effects on the reader 's interpretation of the character are different, they achieve the similar overarching effect of sending a crucial message as to the brutality and often wrongly discriminative nature of society over those men and women who have committed little fault, questioning both , ‘if this a man’ and ‘if this is a woman’.

The societies that Hidden Figures and Twelve Angry Men both face is packed with prejudice and, discrimination that can prevent progression among the underprivileged. Thus, change is important to help decrease these bigotry acts and further progression amongst society. Hidden Figures is set in the 1960’s in Virgina, America. During this time, Virgina was the only segregated state left in America which meant that everything was separated based on race, based on whether you were “colored” or white. This segregation determined where you would drink from, where you sat on the bus, what books you could read, where you would learn, where you would work, where you ate, where you stand in society. It determined your everyday life. This segregated society was separated by race where primarily the “colored” were always given the disadvantages, and that’s how society worked, one that Hidden Figures knows all too well. Mary is an African-American woman with the brain of an engineer but with the position of a computer. Now there is something wrong there. If you have the mind of an engineer why be a computer? Simple. Because African-American women cannot be engineers “Now you want to be an engineer? A female engineer. We’re Negro, baby. Ain’t no such thing. Understand it.” Here we see Levi, her husband, the man who is supposed to be by her side in every decision she makes, someone who should be supporting her every step, bring her down simply because it is unheard of for African-American

Many different depictions of gender roles exist in all times throughout the history of American culture and society. Some are well received and some are not. When pitted against each other for all intents and purposes of opposition, the portrayal of the aspects and common traits of masculinity and femininity are separated in a normal manner. However, when one gender expects the other to do its part and they are not satisfied with the results and demand more, things can shift from normal to extreme fairly quickly. This demand is more commonly attributed by the men within literary works. Examples of this can be seen in Tennessee Williams' “A Streetcar Named Desire”, where Stella is constantly being pushed around and being abused by her

When she was young, "sixteen, I made the discovery - love. All at once and

Gender roles and expectations have a lot of impacts on our society and it needs to be changed in order to create a better civilisation. Although our society has ameliorated tremendously in the past years, there are still some discriminatory actions among genders that are affecting someone 's life negatively. Any remaining differential between genders need to be changed for a better moral standard of living.

Social upheaval in many senses was explicit through the beginning of the twentieth century; two world wars had - for a short time - shifted the balance of power between men and women. Women were increasingly employed to fill positions which had previously been considered masculine. This was not to last however, and by the fifties men had reassumed their more dominant role in society. People were finding new voices at this time by taking pre-existing forms and pushing the boundaries to re-voice established literary forms. Tennessee Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire around the time this reversal was occurring in American society. Williams was a homosexual from the deep south of America, and his play is about physical, emotional

Stereotypical gender roles have existed as long as human culture has, becoming a natural part of our lives. Within both genders lies a variety of stereotypes and beliefs, most notably for men they are often depicted as masculine, tough and the family provider. Whereas women are often shown to be soft and vulnerable. Throughout the play A Streetcar Named Desire the author Tennessee Williams illustrates the men and women, Stanley, Stella, Mitch and Blanche with these common stereotypes. Although gender equality has improved immensely as the decades bypass, certain labels still continue to remain for both genders.

Music plays a huge role in the plot and character developments throughout A Streetcar Named Desire by revealing hidden truths about characters. The inclusion of the musical composition It’s Only A Paper Moon leads to deeper discoveries: the exposures of Blanche and Stanley’s true identities. By contrasting It’s Only A Paper Moon with Stanley’s aggressive dialogue during scene seven, Tennessee Williams forces viewers to side with Blanche and her internal belief that in order to live a life where you are truly happy, it is necessary to forsake some truths and start anew.

Introduction of Text The play A Streetcar Named Desire was written by Tennessee Williams and is set after World War Two, in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is based on the Kowalski family, who live in an small, two room apartment in an underprivileged although appealing neighbourhood. The drama is about Blanche DuBois, an upper-class woman, who explains her unexpected appearance on her sister Stella and blue-collar husband Stanley's doorstep as the result of a series of financial troubles which have recently resulted in the loss of the family plantation Belle Reve.

Streetcar shows a capitalist society in which the gender differences come into account because the women aren’t able to be treated as equals. In capitalist society the idea is that people should be able to progress on their own by working hard, but in A Streetcar, one sees that the only gender allowed to work is a male. The reader first witnesses this when it is known that Stella is a stay

Back in the 1940’s, gender stereotypes existed to a larger extent. Tennessee Williams casts a light on this issue in his play, “A Streetcar Named Desire” in which he shows how Homosexuals; such as Blanche’s husband Allan Grey was cut from the society. During the 1940’s, the concept of homosexuality was completely unusual and many people termed it to be unethical and almost a crime (Straight from the Closet). As a result, Allan Grey has been briefly mentioned but he has a huge role to play in Blanche’s mental breakdown and Williams has constantly made his presence felt through Blanche’s character.