A Streetcar Named Desire is a socially challenging play in light of the way in which Tennessee Williams depicts the capacity of human nature for brutality and deceit. He takes the viewpoint that, no matter how structured or 'civilized' society is, all people will rely on their natural animal instincts, such as dominance and deception, to get themselves out of trouble at some stage in life. William's has created three main characters, Blanche Dubois, Stella Kowalski and Stanley Kowalski. Each of these characters is equally as civilized as the next, yet all are guilty of acts of savagery on different levels. Throughout the play Williams symbolically relates these three characters to animals, 'savages,' through the disclosure of
In the play, A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, Stella and Stanley Kowalski have a far from perfect marriage. In the Kowalski household ranking is set in stone; Stanley is the alpha and protects his ranking by emotionally and physically abusing Stella. Stanley is an aggressive husband but signs of a softer side peak through Stanley’s hard exterior creating two personalities. Stanley has destroyed the meaning of sex, using sex for physical satisfaction and creating a sense of desire for Stella. By using sex as a type of desire Stanley has created an animalistic need for sex. Stanley has contrived authority over Stella, creating a strained marriage. Out of panic, Stella has become Stanley’s enabler, returning to him regardless how hard the hit, Stella accepts the abuse. Stella has become so manipulated by Stanley that she believes that the abuse is a large part of marriage. Stella has grown so dependant on Stanley that Stella grows panicked by the thought of being without Stanley. The Kowalskis have become trapped in an endless cycle of domestic abuse. Stanley Kowalski’s control over Stella Kowalski creates an environment of fear.
It was not just her self that put her in the lime light of being a victim; it is also her new change of environment and people. Stanley is Stella's husband; he is described to be very masculine and aware of his sexual magnetism. “Strongly, compactly built”. He is mostly at ease with people however, if they lack loyalty and affection to him, he will bully them. Especially women, as he believes them just to be easy conflict. It is seen in scene 3 that Stanley has little respect for women. “I said to hush up!” This is addressed to his wife who is seen emotionless and impassive in this play. As for Blanche how is fussy and at edge, she would be very effected by the crude attitude that Stanley presents and so tries to hysterical take Stella away from her husband. Stanley does not forget of this act of interference and makes him all the more determined to be rid of Stella’s “charity case”. The real reason for Stanley’s bulling is that Blanche immediately received all Stella’s attention. “How about my supper huh? I’m not going to no Galatorires’ for supper” This made Stella dominant in power over Stanley and Blanche, something Stanley was not used to. “I put you a cold plate on ice”.
A Streetcar Named Desire is a play founded on the premise of conflicting cultures. Blanche and Stanley, the main antagonists of the play, have been brought up to harbour and preserve extremely disparate notions, to such an extent that their incompatibility becomes a recurring theme within the story. Indeed, their differing values and principles becomes the ultimate cause of antagonism, as it is their conflicting views that fuels the tension already brewing within the Kowalski household. Blanche, a woman disillusioned with the passing of youth and the dejection that loneliness inflicts upon its unwilling victims, breezes into her sister's modest
A Streetcar Named Desire is a play of multifaceted themes and diverse characters with the main antagonists of the play, Blanche and Stanley infused by their polarized attitudes towards reality and society ‘structured on the basis of the oppositions past/present and paradise lost/present chaos’(*1). The effect of these conflicting views is the mental deterioration of Blanche’s cerebral health that, it has been said; Stanley an insensitive brute destroyed Blanche with cruel relish and is the architect of her tragic end. However, due to various events in the play this statement is open to question, for instance, the word ‘insensitive’ is debatable, ‘insensitive’ can be defined as not thinking of other people’s feelings but Stanley is aware of
Although Miss Dubois seems to grab the spotlight in terms of alcohol abuse, the reader must not overlook the play’s other abuser: Stanley Kowalski. However, Stanley’s dependence is quite different from Blanche’s as noted in a literary critique, A Streetcar Named Desire and Other Plays:
William in his play, A Street Named Desire, portrays reality and fantasy in a clever way thought characterization and symbolism. He uses the sweet and romantic Blanche Dubois, a tormented character by her past who is always afflicted and seem to not be able to distinguish between what is real and what is her imagination, to represent fantasy. On the other hand to represent reality he used Stanley a man with both feet on the ground who is very aware of the reality of things; Stanley and Blanche throughout the play develop an antagonist relationship, we are able to see this relationship again and again throughout the play as Stanley always reminded Blanche of her situation and always brings her down as a person, furthermore,
In the beginning of the play A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, Blanche first arrives from Laurel Missouri and immediately becomes the antagonist. As the play goes on Stanley starts to go against Blanche. At the end of the play Blanche becomes the victim. In the end, Stanley sent Blanche off to a mental asylum. This plays demonstrates domestic violence. In the beginning of the play A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams shows how society accepted it and ignored it.Stanley, one of the characters in the play, found domestic violence to be a positive and very sexual part of him and his wife, Stella's, relationship. Throughout the play, Williams shows that he believes that it is wrong.
In A Streetcar Named Desire, the theme of violence is very frequent in the character Stanley Kowalski. Stanley is a married, young man, who comes across to the reader as quite an enraged person with animalistic attributes. A prime insinuation of Stanley’s difference to regular humans is when Stella DuBois (Stanley’s wife) explains to her sister that Stanley is of “a different species”, foreshadowing that Williams may be warning the reader that Stanley is capable of things that are not in
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.
‘A Streetcar named Desire,’ is an interesting play, by Tennessee Williams. The character 'Blanche DuBois' is created to evoke sympathy, as the story follows her tragic deterioration in the months she lived with her sister Stella, and brother-in-law Stanley. After reading the play, I saw Blanche as the victim of Stanley's aggressive ways, and I also saw her as a hero in my eyes.
A Streetcar Named Desire is an intricate web of complex themes and conflicted characters. Set in the pivotal years immediately following World War II, Tennessee Williams infuses Blanche and Stanley with the symbols of opposing class and differing attitudes towards sex and love, then steps back as the power struggle between them ensues. Yet there are no clear cut lines of good vs. evil, no character is neither completely good nor bad, because the main characters, (especially Blanche), are so torn by conflicting and contradictory desires and needs. As such, the play has no clear victor, everyone loses something, and this fact is what gives the play its tragic cast. In a
It is evident in A Streetcar Named Desire, that Williams explores the class differences relating to conflict at this time of post-war America. Through William’s use of stage directions and dialogue to show how the conflict heightens due to the underlying class differences. However, this is challenged partially due to other factors that create conflict and tension. As at this time America was very much a society where class was important and respected and Williams clearly portrays this as Blanche very much confirms to society’s social class standards as she was very much influenced by social class all throughout her life, however the more explicit factor of gender leads up to the conflict in a greater way.
From the very title of the novel and beginning poem Levi implores us to consider the essence of what it is to be human, presenting to us the thought-provoking question, if this is a man? Levi this way allows us to engage on an emotional level with the events of the holocaust and examine our own consciences, and as he details in his preface ‘furnish documentation for a quite study of certain aspects of the human mind’, and accuses society of subconscious reasoning that ‘every stranger is an enemy’. In explicit stripping the prisoners depicted in the text of their humanity, making this uncomfortably apparent to us as we are consistently encourage to draw comparisons, or rather contrast, with our own lives and hence are perhaps
The play A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, is a play about a woman named Blanche Dubois who goes to live with her sister after she loses her home in Mississippi. Between the hardships of her previous life and the way she is treated now, she is not in a good way by the time the play ends. She basically has a mental breakdown. There are three stages of Blanche’s mental state. She lives in a fantasy, Mitch rejecting her, and Stanley raping her, Blanche is mentally unstable by the end of this ply.