Character Analysis: A Streetcar Named Desire

Darkness can be a comfortable place for anyone. Without having to look at yourself or have people see you, one may not feel as judged or insecure. Light is revealing. In a bright room, you can’t hide tears, blemishes, or emotions. Blanche, from A Streetcar Named Desire, knows the pain of light all to well. Blanche 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.

Tennessee William’s 1947 play A Streetcar Named Desire takes place in Elysian Fields, New Orleans, and portrays the marital situation of this time. This play illustrates conflict over the marriage of Stella and Stanley. This marriage can be seen as strict, and controlling but also full of lust. Stella’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.

The play “A Streetcar Named Desire” is about an emotionally unstable lady named Blanche. She moves in with her youngest sister and her husband because the landlord took the land away from Blanche because they could not pay for it anymore. After being their for a while Blanche starts remembering her horrible past which is something she was trying to do in the first place. The husband of Stella, Stanley Kowalski was also someone that made Blanche’s life miserable for complicating everything and harassing her in every possible way.

The late 1940’s were characterized by the emergence out of World War II that led to a dependence on the idea of The American Dream, which meant men were working harder to achieve a more comforting lifestyle and opportunity while women were still fighting the oppression of caused by unequal representation. This idealistic dream is illustrated throughout Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire”, which has a rigid dichotomy between illusion and reality revealed throughout multiple characters and their dysfunctional lives that are a direct result between fantasy and actuality.

6) Identify two examples of Blanche’s deception in this scene. What does this reveal about her character?

William’s play A Streetcar Named Desire presents a variety of perspectives on relationships, especially addressing the idea that bonds which aren’t bound by trust, loyalty and lust in an even balance will inevitably fail. Tennessee Williams uses the interaction between his characters, predominantly Blanche, Mitch, Stella and Stanley; to express a variety of ideas regarding relationships. These connections can be witnessed in scenes 2, 3, 6 and 11, through the use of stage directions, dialogue and expressionism to display different perspectives of character interaction.

Stereotypical gender roles have existed as long as human culture has, becoming a natural part of all of our lives. Within each gender lies a variety of stereotypes and expectations. Most notably for men they are often depicted as tough and the family provider. Whereas women are often shown to be soft and vulnerable. Throughout the play A Streetcar Named Desire the author; Tennessee Williams illustrates the main characters, Stanley, Stella, Mitch and Blanche with these stereotypes. The play takes place in the 1950s in New Orleans containing a diverse population. However, is race discriminated against, those who go against classifed gender roles are often discriminated and have trouble finding their way in society. Although gender equality has

Tennessee Williams wrote “A Streetcar Named Desire” (Williams, 1947) It is based in New Orleans a new cosmopolitan city which is poor but has raffish charm. The past is representing old south in America 1900’s and present is representing new America post world war 2 in 1940’s. Past and present are intertwined throughout the play in the characters Stanley, Blanche, Stella and mitch. Gender roles show that males are the dominant and rule the house which Stanley is prime example as he brings home food and we learn of one time when he got cross and he smashed the light bulbs. Blanche’s personality makes her live in the past acting as a “southern belle” and believing millionaire Shep Huntleigh will marry her unfortunately for Blanche living in the past meant she ended up in a state institution. Stella is a good example of past and present intertwined as he past was living in Belle Reive a plantation as a “southern belle” and now her present is in New Orleans and married to a husband who abusive. The character of Mitch a hard worker whom looks after his ill mother seems to the reader as a decent person with past and present intertwined personality he is respectful at the start to win Blanche

To begin, throughout the play the audience begins to understand how Blanche sees herself. In fact, it starts off when Blanche closes the curtains and cause commotions when light peaks out from them. For example, this is shown

Tennessee Williams is one of the most recognized playwrights that lived during the mid-twentieth-century (“Tennessee Williams”). After finishing college, Williams decides to move to New Orleans, where he writes A Streetcar Named Desire. His career starts to take off as he begins to write more plays (“Tennessee Williams”). A Streetcar Named Desire talks about the life of a woman, Blanche DuBois, who is very secretive about her past and does not expose her true intentions of coming to live with her younger sister Stella. As the play goes on Stanley, Stella’s husband, starts to dig into the dark past that terrorizes Blanche when they begin to have a conflict with each other. In Tennessee Williams’ play, A Streetcar Named Desire Blanche Dubois

In 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,

“I don’t want realism, I want magic”- Blanche DuBois (Williams 145). In A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams presents readers with the acute presence of fantasy in individuals’ lives. Every character fabricates fantasies in his life to gloss over his struggles and forget each other 's flaws. A Streetcar Named Desire evaluates individual’s use of fantasy as a crutch to avoid the hard truths and give purpose to an empty life.

Society of Tennessee Williams’ time saw sexuality as a part of ourselves that should be suppressed because of it’s destructive nature. Throughout A Streetcar Named Desire Williams showcases his characters in this anti-sex society. He shows them in this society, not to praise it, but instead to highlight the negative effects of existing in such a world. Through the actions and consequences his characters face in conforming to societies’ standards Williams manages to communicate a story that condemns society for keeping people from expressing their sexuality and from being stable, whole and sexual human beings. Expressing sexuality or sexual desires leads the play 's characters to death or to ruin, the suppression of desire is destructive and

A 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. To hide her true self, Blanche restored to duplicity, coupled with her voracious desire and ubiquitous deception caused her a breakdown. In the following paragraphs, there will be more events that led Blanche to such end.

“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. As the movie goes on, it becomes more and more clear what Tennessee Williams is trying to convey to the audience. This being, Southern culture was deeply corrupted in many ways and the societal norms of the time period were like a drug that people