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A streetcar named desire relationship between blanche and stanley
A streetcar named desire relationship between blanche and stanley
A streetcar named desire relationship between blanche and stanley
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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. Throughout the play, Stanley is a muscular man who likes to go bowling with his friends and just hangout with his friends in general. They also like to sit around at the table at Stanley’s house drink a couple beers and play poker. When Blanche shows up at the house and sees all of Stanley’s friends sitting around, she starts messing with his friends and she tries to get his friends attention. She starts flirting with one of his friends, Mitch. She turns her music on her radio when Stanley just wants to focus on his hand of cards and win the game of poker. All of She thinks that his house is not nice, which makes Stanley dislike her even more. Blanche thinks she can walk all over Stanley and call him names, she acts like he doesn't love his wife as much as he says he does, she drinks almost all of his alcohol and likes to lie about it, she likes to take up all the time in the bathroom, and she also tries to get Stella to leave him. When this happens things change... Stanley suddenly becomes aggressive. He starts throwing things like alcohol bottles and he also starts breaking dishes which means he is angry and is trying to show us that nothing can go above him because he is the male of the house and he is in
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.
Her first problem is with the heroine of the play, Blanche DuBois, who, she claims, is "ironically made guilty for her own victimization. No longer fully human, she is simply a metaphor of all that is vile about women. Blanche cannot, then, claim tragic stature or even our sympathy precisely because she is a victim of rape. And as she becomes responsible for her own victimization, Stanley is left to glory in his ascendancy. This aspect of Streetcar arises from the misogyny which colors the play…" (Lant 226). Admittedly, Blanche does flirt with Stanley briefly at the beginning of the play—just as many women playfully flirt with their brothers-in-law. But as her relationship with Stanley deteriorates, she makes it quite obvious to him that she loathes the sight of him. Though the world in which Lant lives may be one in which a woman, playfully sprinkling her brother-in-law ...
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
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.
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
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.
However, there are also many instances where Stanley, a common working-class man, reveals his desire to be powerful and manly in his relationship with Stella, a woman who is of high class. Stanley is a man from a poor background and is married to a woman with a rich family history. Logically, Stanley may feel intimidated by Stella’s upbringing and feels that it is crucial to oppress her; it is hinted many times throughout the play as Stanley clearly demonstrates he is the one that holds the power by the way he treats Stella. Right from the start of the play, with Stanley’s introduction, he comes “around the corner… [with] a red-stained package from a butcher’s” (4), much like how an animal would bring its kill back home. With this, it is an analogy to a leader, Stanley, of a pack that brings back the food for the others to eat. The reliance of Stanley to bring back home the food broadcasts his will as the almighty alpha male that holds more importance than Stella. Furthermore, Stanley “heaves the meat at her (Stella),” (4) treating her as like a servant and also making a sexual innuendo. This action is one of disrespect and lets Stella know that she is under Stanley. This is an example of Stanley seeing Stella as a slave, a sexual object, under his control. Control is a large factor to Stanley as a husband and as a person. This is apparent when Stella explains that “Stanley doesn’t
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.
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
Stella Kowalski’s character, parallels to Stanley’s and represents the ego in the play. herself from her hometown and start a life in this vigorous world made by Stanley. she stands for the ego who wants to create a balance between desires and ideas, between body and soul, heart and mind to have a normal life. Blanche is the only one who wants to warn her of what she does. Loving Blanche, she also dislikes her and at the same time fears her. She hopes Blanche marry Mitch for her sister’s sake and for herself too. Actually she wants to get rid of
Blanche is the main character of the play, she is Stella’s older sister, and comes to stay with Stella while Stella is pregnant. Blanche, after being reunited with Stella, meets Stanley and Mitch. Stella is torn between her sister and Stanley because of Stanley’s dislike of Blanche. Stanley is a lower class citizen who is devoted to his friends and adores his wife, but he is cruel to Blanche. Mitch is Stanley’s friend and poker buddy.
A Streetcar Named Desire is a play of multifaceted themes and diverse characters with the main antagonists of the play, Blanche and Stanley infused by their polarized attitudes towards reality and society ‘structured on the basis of the oppositions past/present and paradise lost/present chaos’(*1). The effect of these conflicting views is the mental deterioration of Blanche’s cerebral health that, it has been said; Stanley an insensitive brute destroyed Blanche with cruel relish and is the architect of her tragic end. However, due to various events in the play this statement is open to question, for instance, the word ‘insensitive’ is debatable, ‘insensitive’ can be defined as not thinking of other people’s feelings but Stanley is aware of what he’s doing understanding the mental impairment he causes Blanche.
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
Stanley’s demanding that Mitch return to the poker game when he is first speaking to Blanche could suggest that Stanley doesn’t want the two to interact, and would perhaps go to any lengths to sabotage them. Additionally, Stanley also begins to pry into Blanche’s past, specifically when he brings up a man named Shaw who claims he met Blanche “…at a hotel called the Flamingo” (Williams 89). Though this speculation is denied by Blanche, a further investigation into her past could result in the discovery of incriminating information, thus resulting in sabotage from Stanley.
The conflict between Stanley and Stella climaxes in scene ten. In this scene Stanley openly takes Blanche apart piece by piece he begins with unenthusiastic comments such as "Swine huh?