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.…
Quote #1 Speaker & Page: Blanche (Scene 1, bottom of 21) Quotation: “ I, I, I took the blows in my face and my body! All of those deaths! The parade to graveyard! Father, mother!…
Stella sits in a chair on the porch, in that very same evening after Blanche's departure. Sitting with a stoop, she presses her legs together while continuing to sob. There is a profound silence in the dusk orange sky. The Autumn leaves dance in the chilly air just as Steve, Pablo, Mitch, and Stanley continue their game of poker indoors.…
Williams’ use of diction when he says, “The damned little brat must be protected against her own idiocy, one says to one's self at such times. Others must be protected against her. It is a social necessity.” shows how he views kids. He is saying to readers children do not know any better and because we are older we are expected to protect and guide them in order for society to function properly. He realizes how oblivious this was to him before and how much pint up aggression he had towards this matter. It showed in the forced he used on the girl. He continues by saying “In a final unreasoning assault I overpowered the child's neck and jaws. I forced the heavy silver spoon back of her teeth and down her throat till she gagged. And there it was--both tonsils covered with membrane. She had fought valiantly to keep me from knowing her secret. She had been hiding that sore throat for three days at…
A Streetcar Named Desire written by Tennessee Williams is a play about a southern lady named Blanche from Mississippi visiting her sister Stella, who is married to Stanley and currently living in Elysian Fields, New Orleans. Blanche arrives in Elysian Fields, and throughout her entire stay with Stella and Stanley, there is tension and conflict occurring in Stella’s house. Even though Blanche and Stella were brought up in the South under wealthy conditions, the conflict is mainly caused by Blanche’s dislike of Stanley because, as a blue-collar worker, Stanley's status is lower than the DuBois’. In another aspect, Stanley’s conflict is caused by him being suspicious of Blanche since her arrival. Blanche explains to Stella that…
Streetcar Named Desire’s Tennessee Williams explains how Blanche and Stella are both living a lie and existing in a fantasy, where in time they must come face to face with their own realities. People that live lives they wish to have eventually with have to come to terms and realize to enjoy the life they have and stop comparing their lives to…
“They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and transfer to one called Cemeteries, and ride six blocks and get off at - Elysian Fields!” (Scene 1, Page 6)…
“Solitude is impractical and yet society is fatal” (Ralph Waldo Emerson) Emerson’s saying is all that embodies A Streetcar Named Desire. Williams’s Blanche is that tragic heroin hurt by the depths of society. Her tragic flaw is her pursuit of society and her madness for beauty. The Young Man’s presence in Scene 5 of Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire is essential as it illustrates Blanche’s fear of vanishing beauty and old age. Elia Kazan’s film version of A Streetcar Named Desire correspondingly to Williams’s play uses the Young Man to foreshadow Blanche’s fatal flaw. Williams’s illustration of the young man reveals innocence and naivety which ultimately contrasts with Blanche’s character. However, Kazan’s adaptation of…
The quote “Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right using of strength....” By, Henry Ward Beecher is a quote to agree with. This is because, if an individual uses all their strength, and puts it into something and tries their hardest to do the best that they can do, then thats greatness because that individual put all they had into something. All that matters is how that strength and power is used by the individual. Two works of literature that support this quote are “A Street Car Named Desire” By, Tennessee Williams and “Macbeth.” By, William Shakespeare. In the play write “A Street Car Named Desire” there are many examples of greatness and power in characters in which they weren't strong but they knew how to use the power and strength that they had and others didn’t know how to use their strength and power.…
However, in A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams does not provide the audience with how hard the family struggles financially, but rather how Stanley sees money as power. Additionally, Durang’s parody gives a better indication of how dependent and close Blanche is with her sister. Even though in A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche finds comfort in alcohol after fighting with her sister, the audience does not recognize the same sense of dependency in comparison to Blanche and Kate in Brighton Beach Memoirs. In this drama, the audience is easily able to detect that as a widow and a mother of two, Blanche desperately needs help to support her family, which is why she turned to her sister. Without much thought,…
The play A Streetcar Named Desire revolves around Blanche DuBois; therefore, the main theme of the drama concerns her directly. In Blanche is seen the tragedy of an individual caught between two worlds-the world of the past and the world of the present-unwilling to let go of the past and unable, because of her character, to come to any sort of terms with the present. The final result is her destruction. This process began long before her clash with Stanley Kowalski. It started with the death of her young husband, a weak and perverted boy who committed suicide when she taunted him with her disgust at the discovery of his perversion. In retrospect, she knows that he was the only man she had ever loved, and from this early catastrophe evolves her promiscuity. She is lonely and frightened, and she attempts to fight this condition with sex. Desire fills the emptiness when there is no love and desire blocks the inexorable movement of death, which has already wasted and decayed Blanche's ancestral home Belle Reve.…
Symbolism is an important literary device used to give the reader an understanding of a character. Tennessee Williams, with the use of symbolism, brings his character’s alive in his play, A Streetcar name desire. In the story the reader follows a young southern woman by the name of Blanche Dubois as she moves to New Orleans to live with her sister, Stella, and her brother-in-law, Stanley. From there the reader slowly sees the Blanche’s descent into madness as she begins to lose her grip on reality. In the play Blanche is characterized using symbols like, bathing, light, and music.…
Perception plays an integral role in the fabric of human existence, simply because it affects how we view ourselves and also others view us. Blanche Dubois, Stanley Kowalski, Harold Mitch, and Stella Kowalski all learned this through their continuous evolution throughout “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams, however by focusing on Blanche's relations and also her past we are able to see the role that that perception plays in her life. When Blanche says,“A woman's charm is fifty percent illusion” this becomes increasingly significant because it is a demonstration of her self-perception about the role of a proper, woman in society. With that being said Blanche does not only believe this general perception, rather she embraces it so…
In Tennessee Williams, "Streetcar Named Desire" the character of Stella Kowalski could be described as a passive, empathetic, and docile. Stella exhibits these traits when she is constantly being abused by her husband, yet always seems to come back, she claims its love and always finds excuses for his behavior. For example, in scene four, Stella tells Blanche “Yes, you are Blanche. I know how it must have seemed to you and I’m awful sorry it had to happen, but it wasn’t anything as serious as you seem to take it. In the first place, when men are drinking and playing anything can happen. It’s always a power-keg. He didn’t know what he was doing …. He was as good as a lamb when I came back and he’s really very, very ashamed of himself.” (Williams 1803). Stanley Kowalski is described as abusive, cruel, and the "typical macho man". For example, when he hits his wife “You lay your hands on me and I’ll- (She backs out of sight, He advances and disappears. There is the second of a blow. Blanche screams and runs into the kitchen. The men rush forward and there is grappling and cursing. Something is overturned with a crash.)” (1800) this indicates that Stanley’s relationship with Stella is physically abusive, because he still manages to beat her knowing…