Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams Essay

Blanche portrays herself as a refined and sophisticated woman, but when you get further into the story you realize that she’s neither of those things. Blanche pretends to be innocent and good while she has a very arresting past. Implying unhappy sexual relationships, alcohol abuse, and death, which she wants to hide from others. Blanche likes to seek approval from everyone she meets because it makes her feel wanted and loved. But, she feels complete loneliness even when she’s surrounded by others. It’s as if she’s on a quest to find someone who thinks she’s special and loves her unconditionally. Blanche is a symbolic character, an alcoholic, and an attention seeker.

The loss of Belle Reve may provide as symbolic in regards to Blanche, as it translates to beautiful dream, this infuses the character with a sense of hopelessness and tragedy and her arrival in Elysian Fields makes this even more potent. Whilst Blanche informs Stella of the loss of Belle Reve, she appears noticeably anxious, particular when she ‘begins to shake with intensity. In addition, her descriptions of the loss are exaggerative and convey rather ominous imagery, such as the ‘Grim Reaper’ putting up ‘tent’ on her doorstep. This potentially shows the extent to which these events affected Blanche’s mental stability or, they may also indicate a fear of death, for it may provide eternal loneliness which would naturally disconcert Blanche.

After being stripped of her life-affirming and life-sustaining illusions, Blanche cannot do anything but stare ”blankly and silently into the face of her executioner and sees in his visage the immanent prospect of her own destruction.” (Crandell)

In this play Blanche has a praxis: She must get a companion to share her life with who can provide her with shelter, food, and financial support and that’s what makes the whole story happen. This praxis is created when two things happen: First, Blanche finding out that the man she married was having an affair with another man and he decided to shoot himself after she confronted him, and second, the loss of her house in Mississippi. These two things create her need of a shelter, financial support and food therefore she decides to stay with her sister Stella.

Blanche was “Deceptive, dishonest, fraudulent, permanently flawed, unable to face reality, Blanche is for all that thoroughly capable of commanding audience compassion, for her struggle and the crushing defeat she endures have the magnitude of tragedy. The inevitability of her doom, her refusal to back down in the face of it, and the essential humanity of the forces that drive her to it are the very heart of tragedy, No matter what evil she may have done, nor what villainies practiced, she is a human being trapped by the fates, making a human fight to escape and to survive with some shred of human dignity, in full recognition of her own fatal human weaknesses and increasing absence of hope” (Crandell 93). The obscure relevance to her deceptions are only a portion of why Blanche represents the grotesque. Her necessity to cling to the “old” southern ways (with a “death grip”) allows her to cling to her own sanity. She exudes narcissism to the fullest extent, but is unable to see the damage that it is causing to herself and the people around her.

Here she is referring to her dark and shameful incidents that occurred after her husband's death, which she kept hidden from Stella. Tennessee Williams uses symbolism and imagery to help convey the idea that Blanche is deceptive, egotistical and seductive. For example, wearing a white dress in this scene deceives people of being innocent and pure. As Blanche feels she must be devious in order to withstand the challenges in a world that she is "fading now". Women in Blanche's

Blanche ultimately tries to purify her past. in A Streetcar Named Desire Blanche says “Here i am Stanley all freshly bathed and scented feeling like a brand new human.” (Williams 87). Blanche is dealing has been dealing with death all her life from family to her homosexual husband who she caught in bed with another man she always had been depended on to care for people that she wasn’t cared for at all blanche soon went into a point in her life where she needed affection as a teacher in Laurel she had relations with a 17 year old student which caused her to lose her job and unfortunately find her way into prostitution and alcohol Blance often claims that she is not a drinker that she has no more than one while she drinks it brings her comfort as leading to the death of her husband was ended when he shot himself at a casino because blanche says he disgusts her now every time blance finds herself in a situation that involves reality she hears polka music in her head that always ends with a gunshot to make up for her bad choices blanche tries to start new by wearing white clothing which shows purity and cleansing and she also takes long baths to wash off the history and filth of her past as much as blanche tries to clean her past it still follows her back to New Orleans with her reputation ruined by having sex with random strangers she wants to forget

Tennessee Williams was born as Thomas Lanier Williams on March 26, 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi. He is the son of Cornelius Coffin Williams and Edwina Dakin Williams. As he grew up, he heard stories about the volunteer work of his father as well as the forty-five men his mother dated before she finally decided to settle down (Forman 1). His parents separated in 1909 before his older sister Rose was born. The separation was caused by Cornelius’ problems with womanizing, drinking, and gambling (Forman 3). His mother went to live at her father’s rectory in Columbus. He grew very fond of his grandparents, Reverend Walter Dakin and Rose Otte Dakin. Soon, Williams started to dread the days that his father would

A Streetcar Named Desire won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948 specifically psychological drama. Written by Tennessee Williams in 1947, Streetcar tells the story of a woman named Blanche and her road to lunacy and set during and immediately after World War II. Blanche loses her family’s manor and moves to live with her brother-in-law Stanley and her sister Stella in New Orleans. Whom Blanche has not seen for many years and coming up to the place where Stella lives, Blanche was disappointed. For when her sister described the place to her it was much nicer than the reality of it.

Maybe in her mind she was still married to Allen. At the very last, it gives Blanche a credit for her honesty. Nothing in the play justifies the condemnation of her. Yet, nothing justifies her innocence either after her husband’s death (Thomieres

Short story writer, poems, essays, and novel play Tennessee Williams was born March 26, 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi to Cornelius and Edwina Williams as Thomas Lanier Williams. He was the second of three children. Having a complicated relationship with his father he was raised by his mother. To describe his childhood, it would be like normal kids happy and pleasant. Then his family moved to St. Louis Missouri and his normal childhood ended. Because he was stripped of his happy and pleasant childhood he went to writing. The Williams’ marriage didn’t help the situation at all, “It was just a wrong marriage,” Williams later wrote. The Williams family situation helped with the playwright’s art. Throughout this essay, I will look back on Tennessee Williams life as well as one of his most known plays A Streetcar Named Desire.

A Streetcar named Desire is a play written by Tennessee Williams in which there are many symbols that point the reader towards a character’s true nature. The play is about Blanche DuBois, who is an individual trapped between the world of the past and the world of the present. She cannot face the realities of her life and eventually her desire drives her to insanity. In this play Williams shows where desire can drive a person and explains that desire fills a person’s emptiness when no one is affectionate towards them.

It is when her past is dissected, however that one can see why she behaves in such a manor. At risk of losing her home and loved ones she turns to prostitution, thus leaving her lonely and desprite for intimacy and not just sex. “That is the point of Blanche’s downfall: the finding herself

A literary critique to Tennessee Williams “A Streetcar Named Desire” was written in 2012 by Daniel Thomières called “Tennessee Williams and the Two Streetcars.” Thomières argues that two themes are evident in Williams’ play and they are sex (desire) and death. He believed Blanche became the “personification of excess” (2) as the play went on. Stella was the opposite of that, Thomières believed that she chose safety and a future instead of playing in to her desires. She is believed to have thought, “Stanley and the apartment mean survival” (5). He wrote in his article about each of the characters and how they embodied different aspects of desire. He also explained why Stanley and Blanche were instantly attracted to each other. As they were

Equally important, he also suggests that we cannot escape from love. The author describes Blanche as someone broken and someone who is trying to fill a void. Blanche says, “I loved someone, too, and the person I loved I lost” (95). Blanche is referring to her deceased husband Allan who committed suicide after Blanche discovered his sexual affair with another man. The loss of her husband and the loss of the love after discovering her husband’s affair show the void she feels of having lost someone.