A Streetcar Named Desire Analysis
Tennessee Williams story, “A Streetcar Named Desire,” was a mix of the past and present that clashed together by two characters who believed in different lifestyles. In the story, Williams uses the domestic setting along with the characters personal traits as a base for the elements for social change. There are many references in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” that represent the use of past and present being used together. The past and present were entwined by the characters personal characteristics, the setting of the story, and Blanche’s personal relationships with men throughout the story.
To begin, the personal characteristics of Blanche and Stanley were used to represent how society was changing into a new world. In the story, Blanche was used to represent the Old South, while Stanley in the story represented the American Dream. Blanche embodies the image and the ideals of the Old South. Stanley, on the other hand, is employed as a factory worker and is steadily contributing to the demise of the southern lifestyle that Blanche represents. Blanche’s representation of the Old South included being in favor of the old American values, refinement, manners, and the high culture of the Old South. In “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Blanche says, “Stella, you have a maid, don’t you” (Williams 1.1.69) ? From that quote, we can tell that Blanche grew up in a higher rank class and still believes that her sister should be living in the same lifestyle because to her class are race are
A Streetcar Named Desire Conflict Essay
783 Words | 4 PagesIn the play A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, the main characters, Blanche Dubois and Stanley Kowalski, share a great dislike and distrust towards one another, ultimately becoming the basis for the story’s conflict. Their common contemption stems from their contrasting personalities and backgrounds, their incompatibility of being able to function under the same environment, and inability to adapt to the situations they find themselves in. Although Blanche detests Stanley and the manner in which he behaves in, she realises that he is a necessary part for Stella’s life in New Orleans, an environment that greatly differs from the southern aristocracy that Stella and Blanche once lived in. Blanche expresses this idea by stating, “Oh,
A Streetcar Named Desire Marriage Analysis
978 Words | 4 PagesStella’s sister, Blanche, sees through the illusion and can see how toxic the marriage really is. Stanley and Blanche come from distinctly different backgrounds, Stanley is from the working class while Blanche comes from wealth. Williams uses these two contrasting points of views on marriage, to show the issues of possessiveness, class, and sexism. When it comes to Stanley’s marriage to Stella, one of the most notable characteristics is how possessive Stanley is. An example of this is when Stanley found out that Blanche and therefore Stella, lost their estate.
A Streetcar Named Desire Masculinity Analysis
661 Words | 3 PagesIn A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams distinguishes the masculinity and femininity of Blanche and Stanley by establishing the range of emotions and behaviors each character demonstrates during interactions with other people. Throughout the scenes in A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams has repeatedly characterized Stanley Kowalski having animalistic behavior and developing masculinity. Initially, Williams depicted Stanley as a white collar everyday individual when Stella shows her sister, Blanche, a picture of Stanley as a Sergeant in the Army. In the beginning of the novel, Stanley was light and playful with Stella, especially when he teased Stella before going to the bowling alley to hang out with his friends.
Theme Of Cruelty In A Streetcar Named Desire
787 Words | 4 PagesBlanche needs help and is hoping that her sister will take her under her wing. Blanche and Stella are both from the old south raised with values, but the values mean nothing to either one of the girls. Williams’s play, A Streetcar Named Desire, displays the theme of cruelty and violence through the relationship of Blanche and Stanley. The relationship is seen in the way he treats her throughout the play, in the final scenes when he
Insecurity In A Streetcar Named Desire
1085 Words | 5 PagesIt is what is haunting Blanche’s life, it is what has made her mentally unstable. Throughout the play, she has been hiding her past from people so she looks like
Blanche's Destruction In A Streetcar Named Desire
778 Words | 4 PagesBoth Blanche's family and Belle Reve represent her dream to indulge in a sophisticated, high class, and luxurious life. When all of Blanche’s family dies and Stella leaves, Blanche loses the first piece of her “beautiful dream.” She no longer has the money to support herself, since her educational career provides insufficient funds. After the tragic loss of her husband, Blanche loses Belle Reve and loses her job, symbolizing that her “beautiful dream” has been fully crushed and the only remnants of her dream are the lies she feeds herself. This fall of social class leads Blanche to carry a tone of classism.
A Streetcar Named Desire: Similarities Between Stanley And Blanche
159 Words | 1 PagesOne major similarity between Blanche and Stanley is that they both like to manipulate or control other people, to make themselves feel better. Even though there are different ways Stanley and Blanche take control of other people they still do it in a familiar matter. For example, Blanche takes power and influence over people by lying to others and herself, to make them believe in something that actually never happened, with fantacy, therefore makes Blanche feel greater, than she actually may be. To go deeper in depth, to prove that Blanche is manipulative she also says. ¨I don 't tell the truth.
Relationships In A Streetcar Named Desire
1371 Words | 6 PagesWilliams uses the expressionist technique “The ‘Varsouviana’ is filtered into weird distortion, accompanied by the cries and noises of the jungle” to parallel Blanche’s inner mind and depicts Blanche’s deranged mental state after Stella’s betrayal. The imagery ‘Lurid reflections appear on the walls in odd, sinuous shapes’ highlights her mental turbulence and the stage directions ‘mysterious voices behind walls, as if reverberated through a canyon of rock…the echo sounds in threatening whispers’ heightens tension, positioning the audience to witness the overwhelming fear and exaggeration of her senses, further emphasising the detrimental impact Stella’s decision made. The Streetcar Named Desire also examines the influence that a person’s social standing can have. Stanley’s statement in scene 2 ‘The Kowalskis and Dubois have different notions’ indicates their social upbringing has influenced the way they think, hence disrupting their connection and loyalty towards one another. The use of their family name is metonymic for their ancestry and social standing, addressing the barriers derived from a social hierarchy which have affected their relationship.
Streetcar Named Desire Stanley Character Analysis
953 Words | 4 PagesStanley throughout the book does not really seem to have an interest in Blanche. But at the end of the story that all changes Stanley decides to create a very special interest in Blanche. The part that no one can understand is exactly why Stanley would want to do that due to the idea that Blanche is Stella's sister. Stanley´s brilliant idea was to wait until Stella was gone and then things started to get a little more intense. ¨ Oh!
Violence And Power In A Streetcar Named Desire
652 Words | 3 PagesThe themes of violence and power in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ hold an important role in the criticism of 1940s American society. Conflicts perpetuated by violence and power, such as abusive relationships and violent oppression are projected through the characters within the play. Williams uses these conflicts to highlight his criticisms of faltering values and social norms, from the perspective of an individual constrained by the expectations of a strict, Southern society. To begin with, there is an indefinite violence between men and women within ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’. Stanley Kowalski, a focal character, is the epitome of male dominance and primitive aggression.
Illusion Vs Reality In A Streetcar Named Desire
608 Words | 3 PagesIn A Streetcar Named Desire, the author Tennessee Williams exaggerates and dramatizes fantasy’s incapability to overcome reality through an observation of the boundary between Blanches exterior and interior conveying the theme that illusion and fantasy are often better than reality. Blanche, who hides her version of the past, alters her present and her relationship with her suitor Mitch and her sister, Stella. Blanche was surrounded by death in her past, her relatives and husband have passed away, leaving her with no legacy left to continue. The money has exhausted; the values are falling apart and she is alienated and unable to survive in the harsh reality of modern society. Throughout the novel Williams juxtaposed Blanche’s delusions with
Comparing The Great Gatsby And A Streetcar Named Desire
1312 Words | 6 PagesAnother very common theme represented throughout both texts, is the constant allusion to light. Within “A Streetcar Named Desire”, the use of light reveals Blanche’s role and appearance as a character. One of Blanche’s biggest flaws is that she prefers to be only seen in the dark. She does not like to reveal herself in the light as she is afraid of people seeing that she is in fact aging.
Theme Of Light In A Streetcar Named Desire
895 Words | 4 PagesBlanche flees a failed company and a failed marriage in attempt to find refuge in her sister’s home. Through her whirlwind of emotions, the reader can see Blanche desires youth and beauty above all else, or so the readers think. In reality, she uses darkness to hide the true story of her past. In A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, Williams uses the motif of light to reveal Blanche’s habit of living in a fantasy world until the light illuminates her reality. Blanche uses darkness to block her past from onlookers as to shape her image.
Society In A Streetcar Named Desire
847 Words | 4 Pages“A Streetcar Named Desire” is a very elegant film in which the Southern gothic culture is demonstrated profoundly. Tennessee Williams uses the characters in the play to bring about a sense of how corrupt society truly was in the 1940’s in the South. The 1940’s was marked by an immense amount of violence, alcoholism, and poverty. Women at the time were treated as objects rather than people. Throughout the play Tennessee Williams relates the aspects of Southern society to the characters in the play.
Who Is Responsible For Blanche's Downfall
1266 Words | 6 PagesA streetcar named desire was written by Tennessee Williams in 1947, in purpose to show the “declining of the upper class and the domination of the bourgeois middle class in the U.S.A. where the south agriculture class could not compete with the industrialization.” Blanche Dubois the protagonist of our story, a southern beauty that is trapped by the restrictive laws of her society. But she broke them, and eventually put herself in a state, where she had no job and no house. So she had to go to her sister, Stella and live with her and her sister’s husband, Stanley. While staying there, she created a façade for her to hide her flaws and kept acting as a lady, where she is anything but that.
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