Stanley Kowalski Character Analysis
Out of the entire cast in A Streetcar Named Desire, there are only four major characters. Out of those four, one that stands out quite more than the others is Stanley Kowalski. In the play and film, Stanley Kowalski is the working-class husband of Stella Kowalski (nèe Dubois). Stanley is characterized as hard-working, passionate, and loyal but also short-tempered and brutal. From the beginning, Stanley takes no liking to Stella's sister, Blanche Dubois, and this enmity between the two grows worse and worse over the course of the story. In the end, Stanley, after all his plans against Blanche, gets away with it, at least in the play. In the movie, he still ends up winning against Blanche, but is punished in the end. Stanley, in a sense, is a fascinating character. Some characters may sympathize or relate to him. Others may dislike him, or hate him entirely. When initially compared to Blanche in the very beginning of the story, Stanley appears to be more sane and well-grounded than his sister-in-law. …show more content…
While Blanche may not be the best interaction to prove this as Stanley's malignant feelings mainly stem from their different backgrounds and ideals, his interactions with Stella prove more. Whenever Stella attempts to scold or yell at Stanley, he completely shuts her down. When she, Blanche, and Mitch refused to turn off the radio, Stanley immediately turns to violence, throwing the radio out the window. While it can be argued that he may actually love Stella as he calls for her and sires a child with her, the general overview could be that their marriage is driven on lust, passion and desire, rather than true love. Also connecting with the stereotype of the 1950s, it was not common for a wife to leave her husband, so she may only be staying with him as she is still "blinded by
Outsiders In A Streetcar Named Desire
1465 Words | 6 PagesStanley is a blunt, practical, and animalistic man who has no patience for subtleties and refinement. His animalistic character shows the moment he meets Blanche, when he, moving with “animalistic joy” (24), “sizes” Blanche up with “sexual classifications” and “crude image” in his mind (25). Under his stare, Blanche draws “involuntarily back” (25), a movement that foreshadows their later conflict and her subsequent demise. His practical and straightforward side shows when he interrogates Blanche about the sale of Belle Reve to make sure that his wife is not swindled. His straightforward, practical nature makes him “boom” out of impatience (46) and demands Blanche to cut straight to the point when she tries to talk in an indirect, subtle manner as befit a Southern gentlewoman.
Self Preservation In Night By Elie Wiesel
1480 Words | 6 PagesA while after she got settled in, Blanche witnessed Stanley physically abusing her sister, Stella, and then started secretly rebuking Stanley to Stella. She saw their relationship as unhealthy and tried everything that she could to destroy it. After overhearing Blanche telling Stella to get rid of him, Stanley begins to steadily contemplate his revenge. He had made it his personal goal to dig deeper into her past and he found pretty much all the information that he needed in order to get rid of her. In order to preserve his relationship with his wife, Stanley came up with an amazingly credible plan to permanently get rid of
A Streetcar Named Desire Marriage Analysis
978 Words | 4 PagesExamining Marriage in Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire 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.
Insecurity In A Streetcar Named Desire
1085 Words | 5 PagesThe 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. Death is one of the most symbolic terms in this play.
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.
Theme Of Money In A Streetcar Named Desire
1413 Words | 6 PagesStella lived her life depending on him whereas Blanche was currently on her own after her marriage and had no one to depend on but herself. Unfortunately there was a commotion that occured in scene 4 between Stanley and Stella. Blanche went to check up on Stella and was brutally convincing her to leave Stanley. The way that Stella responded to her made her look naive over the fact that Stanley was the issue. When Blanche and Stella were talking, Stella goes, “Stanley doesn’t give me a regular allowance, he likes to pay bills himself but this morning he gave me ten dollars to smooth things over (Williams, 78).
Death In A Streetcar Named Desire
718 Words | 3 PagesHe desires a normal life with Stella, without Blanche in the picture. As told in A Streetcar Named Desire--Psychoanalytic Perspectives, “After exposing all of Blanches shameful secrets and destroying her plans to marry Mitch, Stanley completes her violation and subjugation by raping her, which drives her to insanity” (A Streetcar Named Desire--Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Silvio). Stanley desires a normal life without Blanche so bad, that he completely broke her to get it. Stanley also wants to be desired.
Stella Kowalski's Sexuality In A Streetcar Named Desire
741 Words | 3 PagesIn the play A Streetcar Named Desire written by Tennessee Williams, the main character, Blanche DuBois, travels to New Orleans to stay with her sister, Stella, and Stella’s husband, Stanley Kowalski. Throughout the play, sexulaity is seen as a strong motivator for many of the characters actions. Early in the play, Stanley is introduced as a particularly sexual character, “ Since earliest manhood the center of his life has been pleasure with women, the giving and taking of it, not with weak indulgence... He sizes women up with a glance, with sexual classifications…” (Williams 25).
Violence And Power In A Streetcar Named Desire
652 Words | 3 PagesHe is verbally and physically abusive towards his wife, Stella, in order to establish his power over her. He is described as giving a ‘loud whack of his hand on her thigh’ to which she merely retaliates ‘That’s not fun, Stanley.’ Whilst ‘the men laugh’. This shows how abusive behaviour towards women is normalised and accepted within this patriarchal society as the men simply choose to ‘laugh’ along with Stanley.
Theme Of Dominance In A Streetcar Named Desire
698 Words | 3 PagesAs soon as Blanche steps into the Kowalski household and meets Stanley, it is evident that her appearance is a threat to his superiority. Both characters attempt to establish dominance through their control over Stella, a minor character who exists mainly to deepen the contrast between Blanche and Stanley. In scene four, Blanche advises Stella to leave her abusive husband and attempts to influence her by saying “I have a plan for us both, to get us both—out!” (69).
Foreshadowing In A Streetcar Named Desire
757 Words | 4 PagesStella accepts her willingly, however, Stanley begins to hear rumors. Blanche starts to date one of Stanley’s friends, Mitch, but when Stanley informs him about her past, Mitch basically tells her
Masculinity In Death Of A Salesman
1735 Words | 7 PagesIn “A Streetcar named Desire,” Stanley and Mitch as the faces of men and masculinity inside this play. Stanley is a sweet, intelligent, caring, and sometimes, violent. Stanley is a violent man when he is drunk. This scene is the poker night; Stanley is having a lot of friends and having a lot of drinks; He is already drunk. Blanche turns on the radio stanley says to Blanche “turn if off” (Williams 54).
Society In A Streetcar Named Desire
847 Words | 4 PagesIn one particular scene in the movie Stanley becomes furious with Blanche’s disrespect towards him and proceeds to tell her that he is the king of the house and she is to do as he says. It seems that Stanley felt a sense of achievement by making women fear him. Tennessee William uses this wicked man to help the audience see how Southern culture displayed unethical
A Streetcar Named Desire: Discussion Questions
1073 Words | 5 PagesIn Scene 10, Blanche is begging Stanley to let her get by and he is not moving to let her through. Stanley says that he thinks Blanche would not be too bad to interfere with in a sexual way going back to Scene 6, when he would walk through the rooms in his underwear at night near Blanche. Blanche complained about the little bit of privacy she had in the house and that was exemplified when Stanley later picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. Blanche had thought in the beginning that her situation was frightful, but never to the degree in which she experienced towards the end of the
Streetcar Named Desire Quotes
2261 Words | 10 PagesHe tries to remind her of all the good times that they had together, as to provide an example of what will happen when Blanche leaves. This quotation shows Stanley’s distain towards Blanche and how he regrets bringing her into his home. It shows how Stanley is fed up with how Blanche acts and how she treats Stella, and that he does not
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