A Streetcar Named Desire
How does Williams portray the character of Stanley and his attitudes? In your answer you should consider Williams’ use of language choices and dramatic techniques
Stanley is the primary male character in A Streetcar Named Desire. His dominating role encompasses the cultural values of Elysian Fields, where men are breadwinners and women are the homemakers. On first appearance Stanley is portrayed as a physically attractive man and dominating attitude towards his wife. He is he is a proud ‘American’ and dislikes people who think they are superior to him. Behind the uneducated and almost degenerate-like behaviour of Stanley, the audience see his manipulative side and determination to break Blanche’s spirits.
The first appearance of Stanley is when he and his friends are coming back from bowling one night. He is carrying a “red stained package from the butchers”, this gives the image that Stanley is dirty and untidy man possibly even a caveman bring home the meat to his wife. The audience can begin to build a picture of who Stanley is by his apparel, he is “roughly dressed in blue denim work clothes” suggesting that he is employed in a low skilled labour-intensive job, not a comfortable office role, this adds to the untidy and ruthless image of him. The stage directions show he is physically attractive “medium height, about five feet eight or nine, strongly, compactly built” the asyndentic description is not dressed in abstract adjectives but it is to the point and factual. The straightforwardness quality about this description hints that Stanley is a man of few words and ‘what you get is what you see with him’.
Williams’ explores Stanley’s appearance particularly when the character “rips off his shirt” and changes to a “brilliant bowling shirt”. The alliteration in this phrase emphasises how much of a wonderful piece of clothing it is, the image of a peacock showing off its feathers is painted in the audiences mind because him replacing his shirt with a
Stanley is the primary male character in A Streetcar Named Desire. His dominating role encompasses the cultural values of Elysian Fields, where men are breadwinners and women are the homemakers. On first appearance Stanley is portrayed as a physically attractive man and dominating attitude towards his wife. He is he is a proud ‘American’ and dislikes people who think they are superior to him. Behind the uneducated and almost degenerate-like behaviour of Stanley, the audience see his manipulative side and determination to break Blanche’s spirits.
The first appearance of Stanley is when he and his friends are coming back from bowling one night. He is carrying a “red stained package from the butchers”, this gives the image that Stanley is dirty and untidy man possibly even a caveman bring home the meat to his wife. The audience can begin to build a picture of who Stanley is by his apparel, he is “roughly dressed in blue denim work clothes” suggesting that he is employed in a low skilled labour-intensive job, not a comfortable office role, this adds to the untidy and ruthless image of him. The stage directions show he is physically attractive “medium height, about five feet eight or nine, strongly, compactly built” the asyndentic description is not dressed in abstract adjectives but it is to the point and factual. The straightforwardness quality about this description hints that Stanley is a man of few words and ‘what you get is what you see with him’.
Williams’ explores Stanley’s appearance particularly when the character “rips off his shirt” and changes to a “brilliant bowling shirt”. The alliteration in this phrase emphasises how much of a wonderful piece of clothing it is, the image of a peacock showing off its feathers is painted in the audiences mind because him replacing his shirt with a