Streetcar Named Desire

Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire is a play that tells the tale of a family in 1940’s New Orleans. It examines the issues of delusion, escapism, the pitfalls of desire, and the idea that people are reluctant to see the truth when it deviates from what their ‘perception’ or what they want from the world. This is all done from a variety of critical lenses. The aforementioned ‘critical lens’ is mostly simply defined as a specific way of looking at a text, by keeping certain questions and ideas in mind. This is important, as it allows the reader to understand a work beyond a mere two dimensional point of view- by analysis on another layer, with certain key factors in mind, a reader is able to further understand the work and the ‘subconscious meaning’ behind the choices of the author. While A Streetcar Named Desire is a novel about the chains of our own making, the reader’s experience and

In a variety of forms, Desire is presented as a destructive force in A Streetcar Named Desire and Disgrace. In A Streetcar Named Desire this destruction takes a variety of forms such as death (shown through Alan 's suicide) and the demise of Blanche’s previously expected reputation as a ‘Southern Belle’. Blanche tries to trade sex for commitment, connection and safety. This is the pattern of her life and one that she fails to see as dysfunctional and destructive. Disgrace also presents desire to be a force of destruction. David Lurie’s uncontrollable desires throughout the novel only make his life worse. However, David uses desire as a show of his male dominance in comparison to Blanche’s desperate sexual encounters. The direct link between desire, disgrace and destruction can also be presented through the animalistic sexual ferocity of Stella and Stanley.

There are nine types of heroes in this world, each of them with their own unique stories, plots, cliches etc. Among those is the classic tragic hero, one who is destined to fail no matter what. In a Streetcar Named Desire, the tragic hero is Blanche Dubois, an aging Southern Belle living in a state of perpetual panic about her fading beauty. In this essay it will be discussed what makes Blanche a tragic hero and how she compares to a typical tragic hero.

In Tennessee William’s play A Streetcar Named Desire, there are many instances where Blanche, one of the main protagonists, uses illusions in an attempt to escape reality; her relationship with Allan, her relationship within herself and her relationship with Mitch. The idea of illusion and reality seems to bring on the idea that Blanche wants to escape her own world and be someone else, we see her do this by lying any chance she get’s if it makes her look good.

Established as one of the most prolific playwrights of the 20th century, Tennessee Williams used his writing as a form of therapy. The author came from a troubled background consisting of alcoholism, mental breakdowns, and general unhappiness; Williams exploited these unfortunate events and allowed them to motivate his literature. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois’ struggles represent the reality of people’s lives, “an enduring concern of [Williams’] throughout his writing career (Henthorne 1). Blanche captures our focus with her seemingly sincere and fragile nature, but it is later revealed that this is just an illusion within her own mind. She resides in a world of fantasy to shield herself against the harsh threats of reality and her own fears. Blanche’s main objective in the play is to keep herself from falling apart in a world of cruelty through alcoholism and illusion. Through the characterization of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams depicts the coping mechanism of fantasy and its detrimental repercussions by exploring the specific experiences that eventually impede her happiness.

Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire is a web of themes, complicated scenarios, and clashes between the characters. Therefore, it might’ve been somehow difficult to find out who the protagonist of this play is if it wasn’t for Aristotle’s ideas of a good tragedy because neither of the main characters, Stanley Kowalski and Blanche Dubois, is completely good nor bad. According to Aristotle’s Poetics, a good tragedy requires the protagonist to undergo a change of status which only happens with Blanche Dubois.

Throughout Tennessee Williams’s play, “A Streetcar Named Desire” one can learn a large portion about his personal life. In the play the character, Blanche has a mental illness the same as his sister Rose had in her lifetime. Blanche’s ex-husband was also homosexual and he made the point to say that he left her for a man and Williams himself was also a homosexual. Tennessee chose for the story to be based in New Orleans, which was a crumbling town at the time and Williams was living a crumbling life, due to he was battling depression. In his plays a reader can see that he has different views than most men of his time, he developed many of these views due to his travels throughout his life. ““Streetcar” tackled themes of desperation, sexual

In the opening two scenes of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ by Tennessee Williams, the audience has its first and generally most important impressions formulated on characters, the plot and the mood and tone of the play overall.

In Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire” madness continues to get progressively worse in the lives of the main characters Stanly, Stella, and Blanche. Because of low self esteem and her delusional thought process Blanche is most affected by the madness. Blanche’s delusional life style leads her to compulsively lie, live a promiscuous life style, and alcoholism. Blanche tries constantly to deal with her own madness, but her delusional mental state is constantly effect by the people around her. Although she causes most of the problems in her life some of her madness is justifiable. By the end of the play Blanche can no longer fight off the madness and is sent to an insane asylum. Even though most of the madness that occurs

A tragic hero in literature is a type of character who has fallen from grace, where the downfall suggests feelings of misfortune and distress among the audience. The tragic flaw of the hero leads to their demise or downfall that in turn brings a tragic end. Aristotle defines a tragic hero as “a person who must evoke a sense of pity and fear in the audience. He is considered a man of misfortune that comes to him through error of judgment.” The characteristics of a tragic hero described by Aristotle are hamartia, hubris, peripeteia, anagnorisis, nemesis and catharsis which allows the audience to have a catharsis of arousing feelings.

Synthesis Essay When one has a strong opinion they will go to great extents to prove their point. It does not matter how much their opinion will hurt someone, they will still write about it and express how they feel. This is exactly what Tennessee Williams did. Tennessee Williams, in his play A Streetcar Named Desire, incorporates his own personal issues with drug addiction to bring to light real world grotesque problems, which influenced many writers in the Southern Gothic era.

Scene X is arguably the most structurally and thematically significant scene of A Streetcar Named Desire, presenting the final confrontation between Blanche and Stanley and concluding with Stanley, in his brutal rape of his wife’s sister, emerging as the undisputed victor. Williams uses language, sound, visual symbolism and violent stage directions in this passage to explore all the play’s key ideas, thus securing it as the dramatic climax of Streetcar. One of the primary concerns dealt with in this scene is that of death and desire, which has been a preoccupation of the play since its beginning. In Scene I, Williams explicitly links sex and death as Blanche arrives at the Kowalskis’ having taken two streetcars named “Desire” and “Cemeteries”.

Upon reaching the aching conclusion of World War II, American society is faced with a stage of urban growth in its culture and racial integration of African Americans. During the late 1940s women stepped down from their jobs that they took on in order to make winning the war possible. In this change of roles the average American woman feels more empowered and entitled having gotten a taste of this sort of independence and being the breadwinner of the family for once. Among these changes, New Orleans in particular was one of the capital influences of urban communities throughout the south. African Americans brought a whole new style of music that implemented itself into the new south culture specifically. This new style of music was commonly referred to as blues; the blues was a style of music that had a very strong emotional as well as sexual feel to it. In the play “A Streetcar Named Desire”, written by Tennessee Williams, many of the characters seem to communicate and express their feelings through music. The music can also be portrayed as a second dialogue in the play in order to reinforce Tennessee Williams’ topics.

Like many people in the world, the characters in Tennessee William’s play, A Streetcar Named Desire, are troubled by anxiety and insecurities. Life in New Orleans during the 1940s was characterized by the incredible variety of music, lively and bright atmosphere, and diverse population, while in the midst of the ongoing World War II. Culture was rich and fruitful because the city developed into a “melting pot” of people from all over the world. Due to the wide-range in population, the people of New Orleans adopted an identity like no other. Instead of their identity being entirely pieced together, almost like a puzzle, the people took on one that was shared by the entire community. However, with this being said, people had the ability to use this to their advantage and mask their true selves. This idea translates well into the play A Streetcar Named Desire, and is exhibited through the character Blanche. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams uses the theme of vanity to reveal the importance of appearance, and the insecurities of Blanche and how they influence her actions.

Marriage is of paramount importance in The Importance of Being Earnest, both as a primary force motivating the plot and as a subject for philosophical speculation and debate. The question of the nature of marriage appears for the first time in the opening dialogue between Algernon and his butler, Lane, and from this point on the subject never disappears for very long. Algernon and Jack discuss the nature of marriage when they dispute briefly about whether a marriage proposal is a matter of “business” or “pleasure,” and Lady Bracknell touches on the issue when she states, “An engagement should