In scene four of “ A Streetcar Named Desire” Blanche attempts to convince Stella that she can get out of her situation with Stanley, but Stella insists she is not in anything she wished to get out of. Stella makes it clear that she is happy about her relationship with Stanley through their sexual chemistry by saying “ But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark”. Stella believes that there is nothing wrong and she can’t understand why Blanche is so frantic. Blanche tries to persuade Stella that her situation with Stanley is just desire by arguing, “ What you are talking about is brutal desire- just- Desire!- the name of that rattle-trap streetcar that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another…”…
A Streetcar Named Desire was based in the time it was written – New Orleans in 1947. The late 1940’s was a postwar era as the United States rose as a victorious superpower above the rest of the world. This era was also the beginning of the Baby Boom – a time of high marriage and birth rates in the country. There was a postwar surge in luxury with the end of rations and the emergence of better, cheaper cars and entertainment. Although there were many positive advances during the time, there was also the dark cloud of the Soviet Union as the Cold War was brewing and the atomic bomb was being threatened once again.…
In the movie, A Street Car Named Desire, Blanche uses the quote, “I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, Yes, magic! I try to give that to people." to explain her desire for her fantasy life to become reality. Blanches fantasy life would restore her youth, forgive her past and she would be more welcomed by people like Stanley and Mitch. I do agree with her statement, and believe that living in a “fantasy world” for a short period of time can be beneficial, but I do not agree with the circumstances Blanches is doing so by. Blanche wants to forget the death of her husband, the termination of her position as a schoolteacher caused by a discovered affair with a high school aged boy and the loss of her childhood home and plantation. Some of…
In the commencement of the play, Blanche is quickly described as a damsel in distress. She is portrayed as a wealthy woman “in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and earing of pearl, white gloves and hat…” (5). She resembles an embellished white moth. The fact that she is forced to live with her younger sister Stella and her domineering husband truly shows that Blanche is in a truly desperate situation. Her overall character is depicted as a traumatized woman that is in complete desolation. Experiences such as witnessing her family on a “...Long parade to the graveyard” (21). Being forced to live with your family until their tragic demise would emotionally and mentally torment anyone. She lives inside of her own world in which she…
Characterizing – it is a daily occurrence that many do not realize is taking place. Whether it appears by describing someone’s new hair or explaining a person’s personality, characterization is frequently happening. Yet, representation of an individual does not only take place in the real world, it appears in numerous literary works as well. For example, in the written matters of A Streetcar Named Desire, A Separate Peace, and “Everyday Use”, where character interactions, such as arguing and having conflicting beliefs, bring out strong depictions and central messages. While some readers of these pieces of literature may believe that character interaction shows no relation to theme relativity; a closer inquiry demonstrates that through characters such as Stella and Stanley, Mama and Dee, and Gene and Finny, an…
The main character in a drama entitled "Street Car Named Desire", written by Tennessee Williams, is an emotional woman by the name of Blanche, who has many afflictions. The setting of this play is in the state of Louisiana. Blanche has the potential to be a very vigorous woman, if she chooses to tap into that unidentified strength. All her life, she’s managed to face scrutiny from every possible direction. She has been ostracized from her community, lied to throughout her entire marriage, lost her inheritance, battling with alcoholism, and invests her fate and well-being in men. Blanche is a wandering soul, who’s wrapped up in life’s misfortunes, and is commonly misunderstood.…
Everyone wants to live a life they do not have. Some people want to be rich, while others want to travel the world and never work a day in their lives. In order to live the lives they do not have, many people create their own fantasies. Tennessee Williams’ Streetcar Named Desire depicts Blanche and Stella’s lives as lies, while revealing how they do not wish to face their own realities, for they will never to able to live the life they have always hoped for.…
The play “streetcar named desire” written by Tennessee William in 1949, which was received the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1948. The play commenced on Broadway on December 3, 1947 in the Ethel Barrymore Theater. This play is about life of a woman in 19th century who could not come out of the fantasy to the real life that her self instinct and her surrounding creates extra problems in her life that makes her hide her historical and physical appearances and lied her sister and suitor. On the other hand, the poem “The Soul Selects Her Own Society” by Emily Dickinson, in 1890, this poem believed toHhave been written in 1862, a year during which Dickinson supposedly produced more than 300 poems. This poem suggests the persona of this poem in order…
Since the beginning of time writers haven chosen a variety of themes to include in their works. The most widely used and complex theme is love. Love is not a specified as a certain feeling or action. For centuries literary plays have employed love into accomplishing their intended outcome of their play. The theme of love emphasizes mutual love, mutual esteem and freedom to choose. Writers tend to make the theme of love become personal and understandable when coming to life in a play. Three writers made this possible in plays using the main theme of love. Three plays that show the complexity of love are “A Doll House” by Henrick Isben, “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams, and “A Midsummer…
The last element of literature that holds so much tragedy is the characters themselves. Blanche is a tragic, fading beauty. She has many tragic things happen to her in the play. Blanche before coming to New Orleans had an afair with one of her students.She ends up losing her mind and being commited to a mental instituition by the end of the play. Stella is abused by her husband both physically and mentally. She loves her husband even though he does that and will not leave him. Stanley is a inferior male that beats his wife. He treat his wife like she is good for only sex.…
When the play begins, Blanche is already a fallen woman in society’s eyes. Her family fortune and estate are gone, she lost her young husband to suicide years earlier, and she is a social pariah due to her indiscrete sexual behavior. She also has a bad drinking problem, which she covers up poorly. Behind her veneer of social snobbery and sexual propriety, Blanche is an insecure, dislocated individual. She is an aging Southern belle who lives in a state of perpetual panic about her fading beauty. Her manner is dainty and frail, and she sports a wardrobe of showy but cheap evening clothes. Stanley quickly sees through Blanche’s act and seeks out information about her past. The notion of death is apparent through Blanches maiden name, Grey, which suggests bleakness and unhappiness. Indeed we are introduced to the fact that behind…
She has lost her young husband to suicide in earlier years, lost her family fortune and estate, and become a heavy drinker, despite the fact that she attempts to cover that up. It is evident that Blanche is very insecure about her looks, as well as a fragile individual. It is often that Blanche hides herself from an uncovered bulb, in order to hide particular features she is not fond of. Blanche relies on male sexual admiration for a sense of self esteem. When she meets Mitch, Blanche sees an opportunity to escape poverty and her bad reputation. She constructs a new identity for herself, to become more appealing to Mitch. Unfortunately, Mitch is not her prince charming, and Stanley once again, ruins a relationship in Blanches life. He sees through her lies, and makes sure that his mate does not get caught up in them. When Stanley rapes Blanche, she becomes very lost within herself, which the other characters in the play, are unaware…
At the beginning of the play, Blanche is already in a nervous breakdown as she was drinking wine that she found in Stella’s house. She was using it to calm her nerves. When Stanley came home from his bowling game, he had a conversation with her. At the end of the scene, he asks her about her husband. She started to break apart as she says “The boy – the boy died; [She sinks back down] I’m afraid I‘m - going to be sick! [Her head falls on her arms],” (p. 31). This represents that her husband’s death has resulted her to go into a depression. She is unstable whenever she is reminded of her husband. She had some memories with her husband that she cannot forget causing her to be really sad. It is later revealed in the play that her husband was with another man. He killed himself due her revulsion towards him. She states “by coming suddenly into a room that I thought was empty – which wasn’t empty, but had two people in it...the boy I had married and an older man who had been friends for years...” (p. 95) and “I’d suddenly - said I saw you disgust me...” (p. 96). She loved her husband but he was…
The first time that Stanley and Blanche meet, there is a bit of normalcy which is a stark contrast from the very hateful tension that is going to come, mainly because of the distrust. But in the beginning, the readers already see Blanche’s reluctance to tell the truth when Stanley asks her if she is a teacher and she conveniently leaves out the detail that she has recently been fired from her position, a scandalous fact that will be revealed in a later scene (Williams 26-27). Stanley and Blanche’s relationship is very complex because they are so different: “To Blanche, Stanley is like death: He is nonreducible. Paradoxically, his primitive life force is death to her, because she cannot turn it into a game, her game. It is intolerably real. Stanley is male sun to her feminine mists. He is the only man around who will not let her say, without choking: "You may think you can crack me with desire, but, instead, I will make you bow to appearances” (Kolin). The conflict between the two characters lead to tragic mishap for a vulnerable Blanche. After steadily taking cheap shots at eachother Stanley decides to look into the not so pleasant past of his high class sister-in-law. After finding out the truth of Blanche’s time in Laurel, Stanley finds his way to take the final blow to knock Blanche down for good. Though it is hurting everyone else in his life, he reveals all of Blanche’s…
Throughout A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams’s sympathy lies with Blanche. He creates this sympathy, in a large part, from the obvious trauma she has experienced due to the loss of her husband. This traumatic loss of her beloved was a driving force for the downward spiral that leads Blanche to Stella’s doorstep. However, the events that drive Blanche to her ultimate defeat do not begin until after Allan’s death, and even she admits, “After the death of Allan – intimacies with strangers was all I seemed able to fill my empty heart with … I think it was panic, that drove me from one to another, hunting some protection” (). Here, Williams implies that Blanche is not like this herself; the disintegration of the loving marriage she once clung to dissipates her naïve, youthful innocence and leads to a bad path. Blanche’s heartbreak following her first love causes her to descend into the degeneration that becomes her ruin, which is a fact that lends empathetic justification and a sorrowful light to her actions.…