How do Tennessee Williams and Ian McEwan present masculinity and Femininity as major themes in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and ‘Enduring Love’?
How do Tennessee Williams and Ian McEwan present masculinity and Femininity as major themes in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and ‘Enduring Love’?
Masculinity and femininity are defined as a set of qualities, characteristics or roles generally considered typical of, or appropriate to, a man or woman respectively [1]. Both the novel ‘Enduring Love’ (1997) and the Play ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ (1947) presents masculinity and femininity but in different ways and era’s. McEwan presents these two major themes mainly through his three main characters Joe Rose, Jed Parry and Clarissa Mellon during the 21st Century whereas Williams presents them through two of his main protagonists Stanley Kowalski and Blanche DuBois. Williams presents female’s in his play as the ‘weaker’ of the two sexes, through the presentation of Blanche’s romanticised and fanatical personality on stage combined with Stanley’s almost primal characteristics and physical attributes. He is so physically imposing and dominating over female characters, and this is representative of the era Williams play is set in, 1940’s America being a patriarchal society. However McEwan presents femininity as a much stronger force in his novel with a strong female character in Clarissa and a more emasculated male character in Joe, showing the changes that society has undergone with women having equal rights in the 21st century and being more empowered. Therefore both writers show the themes of masculinity and femininity through their characters, in some ways similarly, as both have some weak female characters, but also in different ways due to the time and social context of the times they are set in allowing for McEwan to use a more emasculated male and a more powerful female, whereas during the 1940’s of Williams play, men were dominant.
In both the ‘Enduring Love’ and ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ femininity is shown through Blanche and Clarissa’s romanticised ideals of life and love. Clarissa has a romanticised idea of
Masculinity and femininity are defined as a set of qualities, characteristics or roles generally considered typical of, or appropriate to, a man or woman respectively [1]. Both the novel ‘Enduring Love’ (1997) and the Play ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ (1947) presents masculinity and femininity but in different ways and era’s. McEwan presents these two major themes mainly through his three main characters Joe Rose, Jed Parry and Clarissa Mellon during the 21st Century whereas Williams presents them through two of his main protagonists Stanley Kowalski and Blanche DuBois. Williams presents female’s in his play as the ‘weaker’ of the two sexes, through the presentation of Blanche’s romanticised and fanatical personality on stage combined with Stanley’s almost primal characteristics and physical attributes. He is so physically imposing and dominating over female characters, and this is representative of the era Williams play is set in, 1940’s America being a patriarchal society. However McEwan presents femininity as a much stronger force in his novel with a strong female character in Clarissa and a more emasculated male character in Joe, showing the changes that society has undergone with women having equal rights in the 21st century and being more empowered. Therefore both writers show the themes of masculinity and femininity through their characters, in some ways similarly, as both have some weak female characters, but also in different ways due to the time and social context of the times they are set in allowing for McEwan to use a more emasculated male and a more powerful female, whereas during the 1940’s of Williams play, men were dominant.
In both the ‘Enduring Love’ and ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ femininity is shown through Blanche and Clarissa’s romanticised ideals of life and love. Clarissa has a romanticised idea of