The Streetcar Named Desire By Tennessee Williams

It is clear from the beginning that Blanche is not a very honest character. She lives in a fantasy world of her own design. One of the very first things she does when she enters Stella’s

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.

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.

In A Streetcar Named Desire Blanche’s flaws that lead to her downfall are abundant. If we are to view Blanche Dubois as a tragic heroine, then it is in scene six that her tragic flaws are especially evident, and in particular desire. They are so prevalent here as it is arguably the beginning of Blanche’s demise and as in Shakespearean tragedy; it is in the centre of the play that we see the beginning of the protagonist’s downfall. Desire, as her harmartia, is represented in several ways in scene six.

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.

     In Tennessee William’s masterful play, A Streetcar Named Desire, the reader meets a middle – aged woman by the name of Blanche DuBois. Blanche lives in her own faerie tale world, one of a young, beautiful debutante, surrounded by admirers, and loved by all whom she encounters. In reality, Blanche is an aging woman who cannot cope with the actualities of life. She makes up wild stories, and when Stanley Kowalski, her brother – in – law, rapes her, the realities of life cause her to drift into absolute lunacy.

However, Blanche is actually running from her past. Most of her family has died, including her husband. Since then, she has been leaving a life of promiscuity. She is in need of a suitor to save her from her depression in life. Blanche seeks to be desired by men for her sexuality and purity.

Another tragic occurrence is the downfall of Blanche DuBois due to her continuous built up reality of a dream, or in this case a group of dreams that eventually lead to a door of her lies. In Blanche’s arrival, you can sense the unpleasant and ungratefulness of her aroma. She seems to be stuck in her rich sector of her life because she cannot seem to see past the grit and grime of the town and place her sister now lives in.

One of the play’s main characters, Blanche, has by no means had an easy adulthood. She has had to deal with her sister setting off to New Orleans with her new husband, the death of her father, losing her own husband, and the loss of their family’s beloved plantation, Belle Reve. With all of this going on, Blanche disguises her pain and delusion, and pretends that is does not exist. In a way,

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is an appropriate study for grade 12 students as it highlights one’s need to face reality. In addition, the play shows that the need to face reality inherently affects one's relationship with the world. It also exemplifies how the past has a way of coming back with more fight and fury. For instance, and perhaps most powerfully, this play addresses heavy topics such as abuse and trauma, though most interestingly how the characters cope with such issues.

A Streetcar Named Desire, written by Tennessee Williams, was first performed on December 3rd, 1947. Chronicling the actions and events that take place when two sisters are reunited, A Streetcar Named Desire is regarded as one of Tennessee William’s most successful plays. Likewise, “Blank Space”, written and performed by Taylor Swift, was first performed November 23rd, during the 2014 American Music Awards. “Blank Space” spent 22 weeks in the top 40 charts and is featured on the best selling album 1989. Though A Streetcar Named Desire and “Blank Space ” are two separate works written and performed 67 years apart, character and character actions in A Streetcar Named Desire are synonymous with lyrics portrayed in “Blank Space” because “Blank Space” lyrics can be used to describe the relationship between the characters, Blanche and Stanley. Both works describe an unhealthy relationship between two people, foreshadow an event that leads to insanity, and provide detailed information that can be applied to both characters.

A streetcar named desire takes place in 1947 in the French Quarter of New Orleans

The smells of river shipped goods and sounds of smooth jazz music fill the air of French Quarter, New Orléans as a woman in white boards the streetcar named Desire. The May night sky accompanies her as she whirls along to her stop at Cemeteries, and from there, she rides six blocks further to Elysian Fields. Despite her outward appearance, her character is more than what appears on the surface. She is gentle and caring with an old aristocratic flare, but something is slightly skewed about her demeanor. This woman in white is Blanche Dubois, and she has come to find her sister, Stella. In his play A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams explores the battle between reality and illusion. He gives us a vast mixture of characters that all have their own way of viewing their reality. Will they live in the world of magic and ‘what ought to be’ in order to escape what is real, or will they live in the harsh and brute reality that life has in store for them? The most stunning example of living in ‘what ought to be’ can be seen in Blanche. Through Blanche, Williams explores the notion of living in one’s own illusions and beautifully uses symbolize to describe the whirling reality that is Ms. Dubois’s own life.

For my analysis paper, I have chosen the full-length play by Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire. The drama containing several forms of realism was released in December of 1947 and stayed open on Broadway for two years until December of 1949. The play in set in New Orleans, Louisiana in a simi-poor area, but has a certain amount of charm that goes along with it. Williams creates a vast web of emotional conflicts thought all the characters, which leads to great tension thought the play. In my analysis I’m going to talk about the plot and characters in the play, the theme, dictation, music choices, spectacle and the convention.

Tennessee Williams, playwright of “A Streetcar Named Desire”, uses symbolism and other elements to establish the overall theme of illusion vs. reality. He uses these elements to show how the character Blanche can 't distinguish the difference between the two, ultimately leading her to a lonely life full of lies. And unlike Blanche, Stanley knows this from the very beginning and thus, their differences turn into a play full of mind games.