You Can’t Keep A Good Man Down
“. . . Women internalize the feminine wound or feminine inferiority so deeply, there's little or no female authority and esteem to fall back on. So they seek it by adopting and pleasing patriarchal standards.” (Sue Monk Kidd, the Dance of the Dissident Daughter)
In Tennessee Williams work A Streetcar Named Desire, the patriarchy of 1950’s America is on full display. This term is used to describe the dominance of men in society, men can and are hurt in its application. The author displays the economical, societal and psychologically effects of patriarchy on each of the main characters. “A society which is characterized by unequal power relations between women and men, whereby women are systematically disadvantaged
…show more content…
and oppressed. Male violence against women is also a key feature of patriarchy. Women face multiple oppressions in this society, as race, class and sexuality intersect with sexism.” (What is patriarchy? (n.d.). Retrieved June 23, 2015 from http://londonfeministnetwork.org.uk/home/patriarchy) Socially, Stanley’s patriarchal dominance is described in the stage directions from Scene 1 as he first enters his apartment and sees Blanche for the first time.
[More laughter and shouts of parting come from the men. Stanley throws the screen door of the kitchen open and comes in. He is of medium height, about five feet eight or nine, and strongly, compactly built. Animal joy in his being is implicit in all his movements and attitudes. Since earliest manhood the center of his life has been pleasure with women, the giving and taking of it, not with weak indulgence, dependency, but with the power and pride of a richly feathered male bird among hens. Branching out from this complete and satisfying center are all the auxiliary channels of his life, such as his heartiness with men, his appreciation of rough humor, his love of good drink and food and games, his car, his radio, everything that is his, that bears his emblem of the gaudy seed-bearer. He sizes women up at a glance, with sexual classifications, crude images flashing into his mind and determining the way he smiles at them.] Blanche is uncomfortable and draws involuntarily back from his stare. She is keenly aware of his dominant position and reacts as women of the day did. Through all of this he is the leader of his group and in full control of his household. Any opposition to his leadership is quickly put down by physical force. He beats his wife, fights his friends and eventually humiliates Blanche by raping her. …show more content…
His social class is also revealed. He is of Polish descent (Poles were considered lower class citizens at this time), not well educated as shown by is speech. He also lives in a dilapidated apartment in a lower class neighborhood. His sister-in-law Blanche is at the other end of the spectrum. She is a fading Southern Belle from a previously aristocratic family. She is well-spoken, finely groomed and used to the “finer things in life”. She has become destitute causing her to go live with Stella. As noted by Noorbakhsh Hooti “Blanche represents the obsolete ideal past of a society, which cannot co-exist with the present, whose reality is in sharp contrast with the ideal.” (She is appalled at the living conditions of her sister Stella. As evidenced by her conversation with Stella in Scene 1. (BLANCHE: No, now seriously, putting joking aside. Why didn't you tell me, why didn't you write me, honey, why didn't you let me know? STELLA [carefully, pouring herself a drink]: Tell you what, Blanche? BLANCHE: Why, that you had to live in these conditions! (citation) She does not understand why her sister went from living in a large plantation home to this current apartment. Even more puzzling is how she is attracted and married to a man like Stanley. Blanche sees Stanley as beneath her. So much so she refers to him as sub-human and apelike. She attempts to undermine his authority with Stella. She knows he is the patriarch of the family; but her perceived class-status will not allow her to completely submit to his position. Her stance, eventually leads to her undoing. Stella, who came from the same aristocratic background as Blanche has been able to bridge the gap. Pregnant she is comfortable with where she lives, her friends and her life with Stanley. Stanley is overbearing, bullying and has hit her on varying occasions. Still, she is still strongly drawn to him and he is drawn to her. Her position in the relationship, though subservient is socially similar to the other wives. This normalcy seems to also help in accepting her husband’s position. Stanley’s friend Mitch is interested in Blanche. In his case, being the patriarch looks nothing like Stanley position. He is lonely, socially awkward and unmarried. He has a sensitive nature. He is taking care of a sick mother who may die soon. He does not want to be alone. He does not dominate or hit women like his friends. This places him in a position not very far above the women. He is teased and sits at the bottom of the pecking order with Stanley and the others. Though a man in a man’s world, Mitch is not happy with his lot in life. Psychologically patriarchy plays well in the story.
As the play progresses, Stanley feels the disruption in his household. His privacy is being invaded with Blanche so close in the other room. Stella is standing up to his authority more often, with prompting from Blanche. Blanche continually berates him in front of Stella and his friends. He does not believe her story as to why she came. He also feels she is lying about most of her life story. This places him on a slow burn to find out why Blanche is in his home and how to get her to leave. He is determined to restore his household to its pre-Blanche condition. After he learns Blanche’s secrets, he plots to expose her and get her to leave. Due to his nature, he does not care if she is destroyed in the process. Blanche is depressed, lonely and just wants some peace. She has suffered through, death of a spouse, death of several family members, including mother and father, loss of their ancestral plantation, loss of her teaching job and finally loss of her dignity by selling herself for money. She strikes up a relationship with Stanley’s friend Mitch. She is not really interested in Mitch as a person. She just wants to be married, have a home to live in again and be at peace with her past. This in not to be, she is exposed and raped by Stanley, dumped by Mitch and has a psychotic
break. Mitch’s psychological condition causes him to lower his standards and accept Blanche. She however is playing hard to get. Mitch slowly is becoming aware something is not quite right with Blanche. Stanley tells Mitch about Blanche’s past. Mitch is crushed. His hopes of escaping a life alone after his mother dies have been dashed. In anger and despair, he confronts Blanche. He tears away every illusion she has told him. In this scene, he becomes almost as domineering and violent as Stanley. For a fleeting moment he shows his patriarchal manhood. Regains his composure somewhat and leaves a broken man. Stella becomes stronger and stronger throughout the play with the help of her sister Blanche. Blanche seeks to corrupt the matrimonial sanctity of the Kowalski family. Stanley says to Stella, Stell, it’s gonna be all right after she goes and after you’ve had the baby… God, honey, its 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, p.109) She starts to stand up to Stanley’s lording over her. Stanley is more and more disturbed by this turn of events. Stella is heartbroken over Blanche’s past and subsequent mental breakdown. Blanche also tells Stella that Stanley raped her. Stella is left in a desperate situation. Her line (STELLA: I couldn't believe her story and go on living with Stanley), demonstrates, the position women of the day were faced. If she believed her sister, she would have to leave Stanley. Where would she go? What would she do with no job and a baby? She knows she must place Blanche in a Mental Institution. Stanley is so overjoyed he can hardly contain himself. He has regained rule over his household. All is right in his world again. A Streetcar Named Desire showed the patriarchal model that dominated in the 1940s New Orleans. Tennessee Williams skillfully revealed the operations of this model through each of the characters in his play. Making each character’s personality so distinct it causes the audience to think about the validity snap judgments made on external assessments.
The dawn of the twentieth century beheld changes in almost every aspect of the day-to-day lives of women, from the domestic domain to the public. By the midpoint of the twentieth century, women 's activities and concerns had been recognized by the society in previously male-dominating world. The end of the nineteenth century saw tremendous growth in the suffrage movement in England and the United States, with women struggling to attain political equality. However, this was not to last however, and by the fifties men had reassumed their more dominant role in society. Tennessee Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire around the time this reversal was occurring in American society. In this play male dominance is clear. Women are represented as
As women's studies programs have proliferated throughout American universities, feminist "re-readings" of certain classic authors have provided us with the most nonsensical interpretations of these authors' texts. A case in point is that of Kathleen Margaret Lant's interpretation of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire in her essay entitled "A Streetcar Named Misogyny." Throughout the essay, she continually misreads Williams' intention, which of course causes her to misunderstand the play itself. Claiming that the play "has proved vexing to audiences, directors, actors, readers, and critics" (Lant 227), she fails to see that it is she herself who finds the play vexing, because it does not fit nicely into the warped feminist structure she would try to impose upon it.
In scene three Stanley is having his poker party (pg. 57). At this point he is very drunk. Blanche distracting Stanley by listening to the radio instigates him to grab it off the table and toss it out the window. Stella in a state of panic tells everyone to go home which angers Stanley so he chases after her and hits her. This type of behavior is not normal of any human being involved in any relationship. Stanley repeatedly gets what he wants by use of any means possible. In addition the person whoever threatens the existence of his poker game receives a beating, in this case his wife. This scene demonstrates Stanley’s viscous animal like traits with such violence. If what happened here was repeated in today’s society he would find himself in a jail cell with a pending divorce.
As Stanley continues torturing Blanche and draws Stella and Mitch away from her, Blanche’s sanity slowly dwindles. Even though she lied throughout the play, her dishonesty becomes more noticeable and irrational due to Stanley's torment about her horrible past. After dealing with the deaths of her whole family, she loses Belle Reve, the estate on which her and her sister grew up. This is too much for Blanche to handle causing her moral vision to be blurred by “her desperate need to be with someone, with ancestors for models who indulged in “epic fornications” with impunity, [Blanche] moves through the world filling the void in her life with lust” (Kataria 2). She also loses a young husband who killed himself after she found out he was gay when she caught him with another man. After that traumatic experience she needed “a cosy nook to squirm herself into because ...
During early times men were regarded as superior to women. In Tennessee William’s play, “A Streetcar Named Desire”, Stanley Kowalski, the work’s imposing antagonist, thrives on power. He embodies the traits found in a world of old fashioned ideals where men were meant to be dominant figures. This is evident in Stanley’s relationship with Stella, his behavior towards Blanche, and his attitude towards women in general. He enjoys judging women and playing with their feelings as well.
Within Tennessee Williams's story about love and abuse within marriage and challenging familial ties, there lie three very different characters that all see the world in vastly different ways. These members of a family that operate completely outside of our generation’s norms, are constantly unsure of themselves and their station within the binary not only of their familial unit, but within the gender binary that is established for them to follow. Throughout the story of the strange family, each character goes through a different arch that changes them irrevocably whether it is able to be perceived or not by those around them. The only male, Stanley is initially the macho force in the home who controls everything without question. He has no consequences for his actions against his wife and is never held accountable for treating the people around him poorly; this lasts until Blanche arrives. Blanche is an outwardly demure, but spirited young woman who after experiencing untold misfortune breaks mentally and decides to no longer care what others may think of her. She lives her life lavishly and foolishly by having dalliances with younger or richer men who shower her with gifts and attention to get sex from her all too willing form. Her effect on Stanley is one of temptation and challenge; she continually tries to convince her sister that she is too good for the man and in turn fosters a resentment for her in him. Stella acts as the antithesis of Stanley and Blanche’s extreme personalities. She is innocence and purity where they are the darkness that threatens to overtake her life. Throughout, Stella is a pawn that they both try to use against the other to no real avail as she is determined to make the best choice for herself. In th...
This essay will describe whether or not Blanches’ unfortunate eventual mental collapse was due to her being a victim of the society she went to seek comfort in, or if she was solely or at least partly responsible. The factors and issues that will be discussed include, Blanches’ deceitful behaviour and romantic delusions which may have lead to her eventual downfall, the role Stanley ended up playing with his relentless investigations of her past and the continuous revelations of it, the part society and ‘new America’ played in stifling her desires and throwing her into a world she could not relate to or abide by.
In Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams uses the suicide of Blanche's husband to illuminate Blanche's insecurities and immoral behavior. When something terrible happens to someone, it often reveals who he or she truly is. Blanche falls victim to this behavior, and she fails to face her demons. This displays how the play links a character’s illogical choices and their inner struggles.
During the time period Tennessee Williams, author of the play A Streetcar Named Desire, lived in, men were typically portrayed as leaders of the household. Through Williams' usage of dialogue, specific descriptions of each characters, as well as sound, he illustrates to readers of today's society how differently a man and woman coexisted in the mid-1900s, compared to today. Through the eyes of a topical/historical theorist, who stresses the relationships between the story and the time period it takes place, the distinction between today's society and that of five decades past, can be observed with depth and precision.
The ideology of male dominance has existed since the beginning of mankind. In the play A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, it is especially apparent that Stanley, who is a working class man, feels the need to assert and reassert this principle of power constantly. Williams makes clear, through the character of Stanley, that the yearning for others’ recognition of their power and capability is the motive behind men’s masculine inclinations.
She struggles with Stanley’s ideals and shields her past. The essential conflict of the story is between Blanche, and her brother-in-law Stanley. Stanley investigates Blanche’s life to find the truth of her promiscuity, ruining her relationships with Stella, and her possible future husband Mitch, which successfully obtain his goal of getting Blanche out of his house. Blanche attempts to convince Stella that she should leave Stanley because she witnessed a fight between the two. Despite these instances, there is an essence of sexual tension between the two, leading to a suspected rape scene in which one of their arguments ends with Stanley leading Blanche to the bed.
Stanley, the protagonist, is a symbol for society’s view of the stereotypical male. He is muscular, forceful, and dominant. Stanley’s domination becomes so overwhelming that he demands absolute control. This view of the male as a large animal is revealed in the opening of the play where Stanley is described as “bestial.” His power and control throughout the play are foreshadowed in the opening stage directions.
This gradual fall and loss of her sense of reality is truly tragic. Blanche is a person largely driven by the part of her that wants to be liked and be accepted. She cares greatly about how she is viewed and how she looks which is seen throughout the play. Even at the end when she’s living almost completely in the imaginations of her mind she asks Stella and Eunice how she looks before being taken away to an insane asylum. Tennessee Williams, the author of the play, uses all the conflict between Blanche and others, specifically Stanley, to show that fantasy is unable to overcome reality. Stanley and Blanche are both the epitomes of fantasy and reality. Stanley is a man focused on sexual drive, work, and fighting. He is exhibited as animalistic and strongly driven by his desires which is shown when he says, “Be comfortable. That's my motto up where I come from.” Stanley loves and searches after reality which is why he is so set on breaking down the facade he sees in Blanche. Blanche on the other hand is running from her reality and her past. Her fantasy of being high class and chaste is the exact opposite of her reality which is why she wants a life like that so badly. She wants marriage and stability, two things she was jealous of Stella having after arriving in New Orleans. Her fantasy she was building in her new life is shattered when Stanley is able to learn of her past and bring reality crashing down on her. Williams
Blanche who had been caring for a generation of dying relatives at Belle Reve has been forced to sell the family plantation. Blanche is a great deal less realistic than Stanley and lives in illusions which bring upon her downfall.
Women have always been essential to society. Fifty to seventy years ago, a woman was no more than a house wife, caregiver, and at their husbands beck and call. Women had no personal opinion, no voice, and no freedom. They were suppressed by the sociable beliefs of man. A woman’s respectable place was always behind the masculine frame of a man. In the past a woman’s inferiority was not voluntary but instilled by elder women, and/or force. Many, would like to know why? Why was a woman such a threat to a man? Was it just about man’s ability to control, and overpower a woman, or was there a serious threat? Well, everyone has there own opinion about the cause of the past oppression of woman, it is currently still a popular argument today.