Street Car Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire, written by Tennessee Williams in 1947, has been called the best play ever written by an American. The geological setting of the play, New Orleans, creates a remarkably blended mood of decadence, nostalgia, and sensuality. The plot of the play comes about through the conflict between a man and his sister-in-law who comes to live at his house with he and his wife. Stanley Kowalski immediately captures the attention of the audience through Williams' excellent portrayal of the intensely strong willed character.
The portrayal of Stanley Kowalski plays a major role in the success of the play. Williams forms Stanley into an extremely masculine character who will always have his way or no way at all and makes his opinions very clear to those around him. This profound masculinity places Stanley in direct opposition to Blanche DuBois. "The high-minded yet oddly fragile Blanche takes an immediate dislike to the loutish, working-class Stanley, while Stanley immediately recognizes Blanche for what she has become: a woman who finds consolation in indiscriminate sex and alcohol." (Authors & Artists, 165). This clashing forms the conflict which eventually roots itself deeply into the plot of the play. Stanley represents the symbol of the New South. Stanley's aggressiveness leads to his ease in taking total control over a situation. This characteristic also allows Stanley to completely secure the respect of all the men who associate with him, however, his aggression also shines a light upon a very destructive side of his character. In many ways, Stanley's brutality leads to the major conflict between Blanche and himself. "And look at yourself! Take a look at that worn out Mardi Gras outfit, rented for fifty cents from some rag picker! And with that crazy crown on! What queen do you think you are?" (Williams, 127). Stanley becomes very blunt in his contempt and aggression towards Blanche. Another view into the excessive aggression of Stanley appears in the third scene. In this scene, Williams provides a look at a very negative side of Stanley. Stanley physically assaults his wife, Stella, after she returns to the house during his poker game. "How anyone could find Stella Kowalski's comatose endurance of Stanley healthy or whole-hearted is, indeed, a subject for wonder." (Drama Criticism, 401). Stanley also shows his vi...
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...own here. Stella, Stella!" (Williams, 59). Stanley also appears to fight Blanche for the purpose of saving his life with the woman he loves. "When Blanche threatens Stanley's marriage by cajoling her sister to abandon her husband, Stanley brandishes Blanche's weaknesses for all to see in an effort to preserve his home and family." (Authors & Artists, 165-66). These characteristics show the loving and caring side of Stanley as well as offering a contrasting view to his dark, brutal side.
Tennessee Williams creates a brilliant play in A Streetcar Named Desire, featuring an amazing and complex character in Stanley Kowalski. The reader must constantly reevaluate the character of Stanley Kowalski as he presents many questions to the reader throughout the play. During the play, as the conflict develops between Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski, the audience must constantly consider which character portrays the villain and which portrays the victim. "Ultimately, however, Stanley prevails. He has gotten rid of Blanche, who has lost everything, and as we see in the closing lines of the play, he is able to soothe Stella's grief, and their life goes on." (Masterplots, 6316).
When Stanley beats Stella in Scene 3, the abusive side becomes noticed and readers come to the conclusion that it was not the first time that this act of violence has occurred. (Williams 40). But Stella ends up coming back to him after he cries out to her, and their relationship resumes as it did in the times prior. He is also the one who investigates the protagonists’ (Blanche’s) past; as he knows there are things she is hiding. This need to know about Blanche’s history is driven by his hatred for her aristocratic ways. Furthermore, Stanley makes his dominance apparent through the expression of his sexuality. At the end of the play, he rapes Blanche as a way to regain his dominance in the household. Throughout the play, Blanche slowly gains some control over Stella, and causes disruption to Stanley’s
...ices, such an attempt to elicit sympathy for this monster falls short” (Bell 2). Stanley is looked at as the monster of the play which is how he should be viewed. Luck was not on Blanches side through her life which made her make the mistakes she made. Even though her past was not clean, Stanley did not purge her of this. He tried to show her the reality of the world, but through his brutal treatment, only made her sensibility worse. Stanley is a primitive ape-like man, driven only by instinct, who views women as objects and has no respect for others. He is a wife batter and a rapist who is responsible for the crumbling sanity of Blanche who is “the last victim of the Old South, one who inherits the trappings of that grand society but pays the final price for the inability to adapt to a modern world that seeks to wipe grace and gentility out of existence” (Bell 2).
Stanley Kowalski is the epitome of the traditional man, he portrays his superior nature in various scenes in the Tennessee William’s play A Streetcar Named Desire. In scene two of the play, Stanley displays his demanding nature while Stella
Lastly, Southern culture inspired Tennessee Williams to write one of his most famous plays, A Streetcar Named Desire, as he based his major characters on people he knew or encountered. The character of Stanley Kowalski was based on a good friend of his whom he worked with at the International Shoe Company in the 1930's. He was also inspired by the image of a young woman who had just been stood up by the man she was planning to marry.
Stanley’s treatment of Blanche leaves her alone once again, with what little dreams of returning to her previous status destroyed like the paper lampshade that once gave her the shield from the real her she desperately craved. Stella, the one person Blanche believed she could rely on, sides against her husband after Blanche’s ordeal, leading Blanche to be taken away, relying on the “kindness of strangers”. This final image that Williams leaves us with fully demonstrates that Blanche has been cruelly and finally forced away from her “chosen image of what and who” she is, leaving an empty woman, once full of hope for her future.
Tennessee Williams wrote a play named A Streetcar Named Desire which eventually became Pulitzer Prize winner for drama in 1948. This play was first staged on December 3rd 1947 in New York. A Streetcar Named Desire which was second play produced by Williams went on to become a huge success just like his first play named The Glass Menagerie. Streetcar helped Williams in cementing his position as one of the most proficient and respected playwrights existing in contemporary theater (Kolin 1993). For Tennessee Williams this play proved to be his first work which was translated and produced as a movie by Elia Kazan. Owing to high intensity emotional plot and subtle yet powerful acting by its lead cast ensured that the movie became a blockbuster.
While Stanley hits, harasses, and cheats on his wife, Blanche marries a guy who later commits suicide, gets into a relationship with one of her students, and then lies to the guy who might ask her to marry him. Neither one, Blanche nor Stanley, sees anything wrong with their relationships either. Stanley believes he “loves” his wife and that nothing he does weakens their relationship. The reader can clearly tell that Stanley abuses his wife and hurts their relationship when Stanley says “Well, you can hear me and I said to hush up!” (Williams 48) Stanley tells his wife to “hush up” and later hits her in the play when she doesn’t. Along with Stanley having troubles with his relationship, Blanche tells the guy that might eventually ask her to marry him that she never lied in her heart, only through her words. Blanche and Stanley clearly just try and make themselves feel better about their toxic relationships. Not only do Blanche and Stanley have their unhealthy relationships as a similarity, they also have the fact that they both crave
Blanche does not conform to a typical woman who exposes her sexuality and obedience to her husband but, is known to have a history of many sexual partners. However, Stella Kowalski obeyed Stanley after numerous tries in closing down poker night. Stella explains to Stanley and the other men at the table, “All of you-please go home! If any of you have one spark of decency in you-” (Williams 62), and Stanley’s automatic response was to charge after Stella (Williams 63). Stanley has an animalistic and explosive behavior, which would consider inappropriate in a household today, was accepted during the time of the play.Stanley beats her while she is pregnant to show authority and dominance in the household after Stella tries to alter Stanley’s poker
The play, "A Streetcar Named Desire" was written by Tennessee Williams in 1947. It is about a woman named Blanche who moves in with her sister and brother in law who is very aggressive. She is very shaken up about what has happened in her life and is very distraught. Blanche tells many lies throughout the play that get her into trouble, and she hides who she really is throughout the play. The play "A Streetcar Named Desire" is something that is worth studying because of the many lessons that can be taught from it, such as always telling the truth, staying true to yourself, and knowing that abuse is never the answer.
*Quotes from the play: Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar named Desire and Other Plays, Penguin Twentieth-Century, ISBN 0-14-018385-X
The character Stanley represents the theme of reality. Stanley Kowalski is the simple blue-collar husband of Stella. His actions, reactions, and words show reality in its harshest most purist form. His actions are similar to a primitive human. For example he doesn’t close the door when he uses the restroom. This rudeness represents the harsh reality that Blanche refuses to accept. Moreover, when he was drunk he hit Stella. This attack on Blanches sister could be a symbolic “wake up” slap to the face of Blanche.
Stanley Kowalski, is A Streetcar Named Desire’s most sympathetic character in spite of his deplorable actions. Stanley is remembered as the play’s most memorable character by his actions that take play throughout the story. Some of his actions include that he is loyal to his friends and likes to hangout and play games with them, he is very mean to Stella’s sister, Blanche, and he is also in love and is very passionate about Stella, his wife. With Stanley being mean to Stella’s sister, Blanche, but then acting like the head of everyone, I think that that is a part of patriarchy and patriarchy has to deal with the type of way Stanley is a sympathetic character.
Stanley (Stella's husband) represents a theme of realism in the play; he is shown as a primitive, masculine character that is irresistible to Stella and on some levels even to his "opponent" Stella's sister Blanche.
A Streetcar Named Desire is a play founded on the premise of conflicting cultures. Blanche and Stanley, the main antagonists of the play, have been brought up to harbour and preserve extremely disparate notions, to such an extent that their incompatibility becomes a recurring theme within the story. Indeed, their differing values and principles becomes the ultimate cause of antagonism, as it is their conflicting views that fuels the tension already brewing within the Kowalski household. Blanche, a woman disillusioned with the passing of youth and the dejection that loneliness inflicts upon its unwilling victims, breezes into her sister's modest home with the air and grace of a woman imbued with insecurity and abandonment. Her disapproval, concerning Stella's state of residence, is contrived in the face of a culture that disagrees with the old-fashioned principles of the southern plantations, a place that socialised Blanche to behave with the superior demeanour of a woman brain-washed into right-wing conservatism. Incomparably, she represents the old-world of the south, whilst Stanley is the face of a technology driven, machine fuelled, urbanised new-world that is erected on the foundations of immigration and cultural diversity. New Orleans provides such a setting for the play, emphasising the bygone attitude of Blanche whose refusal to part with the archaic morals of her past simply reiterates her lack of social awareness. In stark contrast Stanley epitomises the urban grit of modern society, revealed by his poker nights, primitive tendencies and resentment towards Blanche. ...
Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire is a play wrought with intertwining conflicts between characters. A drama written in eleven scenes, the play takes place in New Orleans over a nine-month period. The atmosphere is noisy, with pianos playing in the distance from bars in town. It is a crowded area of the city, causing close relations with neighbors, and the whole town knowing your business. Their section of the split house consists of two rooms, a bathroom, and a porch. This small house is not fit for three people. The main characters of the story are Stella and Stanley Kowalski, the home owners, Blanche DuBois, Stella’s sister, Harold Mitchell (Mitch), Stanley’s friend, and Eunice and Steve Hubbell, the couple that lives upstairs. Blanche is the protagonist in the story because all of the conflicts involve her. She struggles with Stanley’s ideals and with shielding her past.