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Analysis of the characters in a raisin in the sun
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Many people let the conflicts they have take over their relationships with their loved ones. In the plays A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry and Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, the readers are introduced to the conflicts between each of the families. The Younger family in A Raisin in the Sun, face conflict when Lena Younger’s husband has passed and has left them ten thousand dollars in his will. The Kowalski family in A Streetcar Named Desire are faced with conflict when Stella’s sister Blanche Dubois comes to town. Most particularly, both plays have each faced challenging hurdles and fatalities during their lives. Although both families come from tremendously diverse backgrounds, they share the same conflicts that occur …show more content…
throughout the plays. Furthermore, in each of these productions the reader is shown what each family will do to obtain the American Dream no matter the cost or who they hurt. In A Raisin in the Sun and A Streetcar Named Desire, both plays share the family conflicts that will accelerate when money, gender roles, and desire comes into play. To begin, both plays A Raisin in the Sun and A Streetcar Named Desire, show how money can cause families to face conflict. In A Raisin in the Sun, the Younger’s experience how money can cause family conflict. With the various opinions on what should be done with the ten thousand dollar check, the family is in a constant battle. The ten thousand dollars is the main thing on everyone’s mind because they are so familiar with worrying about money. For example, “They said Saturday and this is just Friday and I hopes to God you ain’t going to get up here first thing this morning and start talking to me ‘bout no money – ‘cause I ‘bout don’t want to hear it” (Hansberry 1913). Like countless Americans, the Younger’s have had to fight to make ends meet. Each family member has a different opinion on what should be done with the money, for instance, Beneatha feels like the money should go towards her college fund to be a doctor. “…I’m going to be a doctor. I’m not worried about who I’m going to marry yet—if I ever get married” (Hansberry 1926). Walter is also fighting for the right to have the money invested in a liquor store that could bring in more money for his family (Hansberry 1917). Charles Washington has noted, “Walter has an iron will and very high expectations of himself when it comes to his determination to succeed, which reduces him to be the villain when he is compared to Mama.” Everyone in the Younger family is quarreling over what to do with the ten thousand dollars, which causes great dispute between Beneatha, Walter, and Mama. Likewise, in A Streetcar Named Desire, Stanley and Blanche show many cases of family conflict throughout the play because of the lost money of Belle Reve. “She wasn’t expecting to find us in such a small place. You see I’d tried to gloss things over a little in my letters” (Williams 1826). Stella and Blanche’s family had their own plantation, so it is natural for Blanche to assume Stella lives in a lavish community. When she finds out they live in such a small place she starts to worry about her sister, and wonders if Stanley can provide for her like Stella had stated in the letters. With that said, conflict arises when Stanley is informed that Blanche lost Belle Reve and sees all her jewels she has brought with her. “Look at these feather and furs that she come here to preen herself in…Genuine fox fur-pieces, a half a mile long! Where are your fox-pieces Stella? Bushy snow white ones, no less” (Williams 1827-28). Stanley is threatened by all of the expensive jewelry Blanche has and feels as though Stella should have the same as Blanche if she did not sell the “lost estate”. Stanley has his mind set that Blanche has sold the plantation, and nothing is going to get in his way from finding out the truth. Where’s the papers? In the trunk?” (Williams 1830). However, it is later proven that Blanche did lose the plantation, but Stanley is so threatened by Blanche that he chooses to think otherwise. Secondly, in both A Streetcar Named Desire and A Raisin in the Sun, gender roles cause family conflict to rise to the surface. In A Raisin in the Sun serval characters are faced with conflict regarding gender roles such as Beneatha. George does not want Beneatha to have her own personality; instead he would like a simple, sophisticated girl but his perfect woman is artificial. I know it and I don’t mind it sometimes…I want you to cut it out, see – The moody stuff, I mean. I don’t like it. You’re a nice-looking girl…all over. That’s all you need, honey, forget the atmosphere. Guys aren’t going to go for the atmosphere – they’re going to go for what they see. Be glad for that. Drop the Garbo routine. It doesn’t go with you. As for myself, I want a nice – simple – sophisticated girl… not a poet – O.K.? (Hansberry 1948). All George wants is a woman to compliment his manhood and being with Beneatha will damage his manhood. Beneatha stating she wants to be a doctor would ruin George’s image because she would be in a higher role in society than him. When all of this is said, it causes gender role conflict between Beneatha and George, which results in the break up between them. Beneatha is constantly faced with gender role conflict because of her choice to become a doctor when most women her age are marrying and having children. Similarly, In A Streetcar Named Desire, Stanley is consistently fighting to be the head of the household because he feels as though he should be there since he is a male. As soon as Blanche makes her appearance the content gender roles between Stella and Stanley come to a screeching halt. He feels like Blanche and Stella are looking down on him, and trying to take over his gender role, and when he feels that way he destroys some plates after being called a pig because he eats with his fingers instead of a fork. “Pig—Polak—disgusting—vulgar—greasy!'—them kind of words have been on your tongue and your sister's too much around here! What do you two think you are? A pair of queens?" (Williams 1863). Blanche does not respect him as the head of the family and is trying to get Stella to see her thinking also. Stanley resorts to expressing his dominance through violence by yelling and throwing the dishes on the floor. “He acts like an animal, has an animal’s habits...There’s even something — sub-human — something not quite to the stage of humanity yet! Yes, something — ape-like about him…Bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle! Maybe he’ll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you!” (Williams 1845). Blanche does not understand why Stella is married to someone who is so “animal like”. Stanley’s gender role of being the man of the house is also shaken after he rapes Blanche. In the words of writer Dan Isaac, “Flaunting her sexual prowess, Blanche depicts the sexual act as a contest—literally an agon, a wrestling match, in which one opponent seeks to exhaust the other—Blanche has clearly won, despite the fact that he “took” her.” Even though Stanley has raped Blanche, she looks at it as a contest. With that said, Stanley is still fighting to be the head of the household, even after he has attempted to show his dominance through the rape of Blanche. Lastly, in both plays A Raisin in the Sun and A Streetcar Named Desire, desire plays a big part in the family conflict.
In A Raisin in the Sun, desire is shown when each character has a different idea of what the American dream means to them. Mama dreams of having her own house, “…a little two-story somewhere, with a yard where Travis could play in the summertime” (Hansberry 1923). She had always dreamed of having her own house in Morgan Park, and even though her and Big Walter planned on moving there after a little while after being married it never happened. (Hansberry 1923). Ruth’s dream is similar to Mama’s, she would like to have her own house also, but the main thing on her mind is to not have to worry about money. However, Beneatha’s dream is the complete opposite of both Mama and Ruth’s. She dreams to become a doctor so she can prove that women can have the same jobs as men. That dream causes conflict because of Walter’s dream to become wealthy and to be able to provide for his family. “…You see, this little liquor store we got in mind cost seventy-five thousand and we figured the initial investment on the place be ‘bout thirty thousand…baby don’t nothing happen for you in this world ‘less you pay someone off” (Hansberry 1917). Walter thinks that he has a better chance than Beneatha and the money should go to him, “Who the hell told you you had to be a doctor…just get married and be quiet” (Hansberry 1919). Throughout the remainder of the play Walter, Beneatha, Ruth …show more content…
and Mama are in a constant argument over what should be done with the money and whose dream should come true. In a similar way, in A Streetcar Named Desire, desire plays a big role in the conflict that happens in this play. Stella and Stanley’s relationship is based mainly on sex. That is how they make up after a fight, and because Blanche is in town their sex life has come to a screeching halt. Stanley is livid now that he has to compete with Blanche for Stella’s attention. “…You remember that way that it was? Them nights we had together? God, honey, it's gonna be sweet when we can make noise in the night the way that we used to and get the colored lights going with nobody's sister behind the curtains to hear us" (Williams 1864). Blanche does not understand why Stella went back downstairs after Stanley’s outburst and makes an enormous deal out of it. Stella kindly answers Blanche, even though she knows she will not understand, “But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark – that sort of make everything else seem – unimportant” (Williams 1844). Blanche also causes them to not be able to make up, which consequently leads to the unwanted fights and fits that Stanley throws. Blanche also has conflict with her own desires which are critically noted by Daniel Thomieres, “Blanche gave them a glimpse of naked desire. It had to be eradicated.” Blanche is always hiding in the dark so Mitch will not be able to see how old she really is. “What it means is I’ve never had a real good look at you, Blanche. Let’s turn the light on” (Williams 1868). She has the sexual desire of always looking young so she can attract all of the younger men, so that is why she is never seen in the daytime. Blanche also has a desire of having a “pure youngness” about her, so when Mitch finds out the truth it causes conflict between them which results in the ending of their relationship. In conclusion, both families are faced with a tremendous amount of conflict with each other and even themselves.
The Younger family demonstrates that even with conflict there is still plenty of room to love and support each other. On the other hand, “A Streetcar named Desire can thus be read as an experiment probing how far one can go following one’s desire, something radically different from sex or love. If one goes the whole way, as Blanche eventually does, one destroys oneself” (Thomieres 390). While the Younger’s are stressing over what Lena is going to do with the money, Beneatha is faced with gender role conflict from George, which results in their break up. The Younger family faces conflict when desire pops its head up in the ten thousand dollar check. As for Stanley, Stella and Blanche, their desires in sexual matters causes Stella and Blanche’s relationship to quiver. These two plays show similar conflicts but end in an entirely different manner. There is nothing in the world that can restrain the Youngers from giving up on their American dream while Stella results in thinking Blanche is dishonest about Stanley and needs to be taking into a mental hospital. In the end, each family will do what is needed in order to save their relationships no matter the
cost.
The plays, The Glass Menagerie and A Raisin in the Sun, deal with the love, honor, and respect of family. In The Glass Menagerie, Amanda, the caring but overbearing and over protective mother, wants to be taken care of, but in A Raisin in the Sun, Mama, as she is known, is the overseer of the family. The prospective of the plays identify that we have family members, like Amanda, as overprotective, or like Mama, as overseers. I am going to give a contrast of the mothers in the plays.
Lena, Walter, Ruth, and Beneatha Younger all lived under the same roof, but their dreams were all different. Being the head of the household, Lena dreamed the dreams of her children and would do whatever it took to make those dreams come true. Walter, Lena's oldest son, set his dream on the liquor store that he planned to invest with the money of his mother. Beneatha, in the other hand, wanted to become a doctor when she got out of college and Ruth, Walter's wife, wanted to be wealthy. "A Raisin in the Sun" was a book about "dreams deferred", and in this book that Lorraine Hansberry had fluently described the dreams of the Younger family and how those dreams became "dreams deferred."
In A Raisin in the Sun, a play by Lorraine Hansberry, Ruth and Beneatha both have great dreams but encounter at least one barrier to their success. Ruth’s dream is to have a happy and loving family, and Walter is her barrier. Beneatha’s dream is to become a doctor, but she is dependent on others to fulfill her dream.
Delicate Blanche, virile Stanley. Dynamic Maggie, impotent Brick. Williams' protagonists are distinctly different in temperament. In "A Streetcar Named Desire" Blanche exemplifies the stereotypical old south: educated, genteel, obsolete. Stanley is the new south: primitive, crude, ambitious. Blanche, a fading beauty, uses her sugary charm and soft southern ways to attract men. In comparison, Stanley "sizes women up at a glance, with sexual classifications" to "determine the way he smiles at them" (Williams, Street 29). Course and deliberately aggressive, he is a "survivor of the stone age" (Williams, Street 72). Despite their differences they both possess a raw sensuality. In their first confrontation, Blanche's thick display of charm angers and attracts Stanley. He wants her to be truthful and "lay her cards on the table" but simultaneously would "get ideas" about Blanche if she wasn't Stella's sister (Williams, Street 40-41). Their relationship overflows with sexual tension as they battle for Stella. Stanley, the new south, defeats Blanche, the old south. After destroying her chance for security, his sexual assault erases her last traces of sanity.
Isn't it true the relationship between Stella and Stanley is praiseworthy, since it combines sexual attraction with compassion for the purpose of procreation? Isn't it true that as opposed to Stanley's normalcy in marriage, Blanche's dalliance in sexual perversion and overt efforts to break up Stanley and Stella's marriage is reprehensible? Isn't it true that Stella's faulty socialization resulting in signs of hysteria throughout the play meant that she probably would have ended her life in a mental hospital no matter whether the rape had occurred or not?
Primarily, in A Raisin in the Sun Walter is an example of one struggling to achieve their dream or desire. Walter serves as the hero and villain of the play due to the actions he takes revolving his dream. “Walter, who firmly believes in the American Dream of economic independence, wants to own his own business, and a liquor store, because he despairs over what he perceives to be his inability to support the family and to provide for his son’s future” ( __ __ ). Walter’s dream is to be sole the provider for his household and give his family a better life. He plans by doing this through a liquor store investment with the insurance money given to Mama from Big Walters death. “In the play Walter loses much of the insurance money that he planned to invest on a liquor store to a con artist” ( ___ ___ ). Walter’s decision on investing in a liquor store turns out to be a horrific choice. In the play although Walter is regretfully deceived and looked down upon as a result of the liquor store ambition, he makes up for it by at the end finally reaching his manhood. During the time of the play the husband of the family is mainly the sole provider for the family. In the case of the play, Walters mother is the sole provider for the family. Walter strives to be the “man” of the house.“A job. (Looks at her) Mama, a job? I open and close car doors all day long. I drive a man around in his limousine and I say, “Yes, sir; no, sir; very good, sir; shall I take the Drive, sir?” Mama, that ain’t no kind of job. That ain’t nothing at all. (Very quietly) Mama, I don’t know if I can make you understand” ( Hansberry , Pg.73). “Walter minimizes the position of a car driver because to him it diminishes his manhood and his sense of individual worth.
The use of alcohol has many different physical properties. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the play A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, alcohol plays a rather compelling and symbolic role. For instance alcohol occurs in both texts in the form of social meanings of having a good time and can also lead to violence. Therefore, the authors are trying to get across that alcohol is used, in different ways, to convey the moral degradations of society.
The idea of family is a central theme in Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun. Hansberry alludes to the Old Testament book of Ruth in her play to magnify “the value of having a home and family”(Ardolino 181). The Younger family faces hardships that in the moment seem to tear them apart from one another, but through everything, they stick together. The importance of family is amplified by the choices of Walter and Beneatha because they appear to initiate fatal cracks in the Younger family’s foundation, but Mama is the cement who encourages her family to pull together as one unit. The hardships of the family help develop a sense of unity for the Younger household.
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. ...
...think that the play is about desire between people and the different ways they can express it, which the title, A Streetcar Named Desire, informs us. Blanche came to town on a streetcar because she was ostracized in her old home as a result of her desires. Blanche had a desire for sex in general to cope with her divorce and the loss of her family; she just needed to feel loved. Stanley expressed his hidden desire for Blanche by being cruel to her through the whole story, and then having sex with her. Mitch showed his desire for Blanche by asking her to marry him. Stella had a desire for Stanley’s love and for Blanche’s well being. The play is a display of the drama involved in families, and it shows that sometimes people have to make decisions and choose one relationship over another. In Stella’s case, she chose her relationship with Stanley over her sister.
The characters in “A Streetcar Named Desire”, most notably Blanche, demonstrates the quality of “being misplaced” and “being torn away from out chosen image of what and who we are” throughout the entirety of the play.
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is a play about a woman named Blanche Dubois who is in misplaced circumstances. Her life is lived through fantasies, the remembrance of her lost husband and the resentment that she feels for her brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski. Various moral and ethical lessons arise in this play such as: Lying ultimately gets you nowhere, Abuse is never good, Treat people how you want to be treated, Stay true to yourself and Don’t judge a book by its cover.
Blanche is Stella’s eccentric sister, she comes to Elysian Fields for help because she has gone through a traumatic period and is struggling with who she is. Malvolio is is a typical brown nose, he will do anything to gain favor of Countess Olivia. However those opposite characters explore the same themes.Through their roles in Twelfth Night and A Streetcar named Desire, Malvolio and Blanche both undergo unrequited love and downfall but because sympathy is created for Blanche both characters have an opposite effect on the audience.
The themes of A streetcar Named Desire are mainly built on conflict, the conflicts between men and women, the conflicts of race, class and attitude to life, and these are especially embodied in Stanley and Blanche. Even in Blanche’s own mind there are conflicts of truth and lies, reality and illusion, and by the end of the play, most of these conflicts have been resolved.
...t people around Elysian Fields were living a contrasting lifestyle from theirs. That “their” type is not the one they’re used to. Stella and Blanche were raised on a plantation with money, while Stanley and his friends were poor and uneducated. The conflict began when these two classes were pushed together in the same world. This is shown when Stanley and Blanche meet each other, and their opposite lifestyles are obvious. Stanley is sweaty, dirty, and rude; whereas Blanche is well dressed and soft spoken.