More handpicked essays just for you.
The importance of communication in relationships
Communicating in relationships
The importance of communication in relationships
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
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. A lesson that is very important to be learned is to always tell the truth. Lying is what got Blanche into the situation she …show more content…
was in. She starts telling lies as soon as she arrives to her sister Stella's place. Blanche tells Stella that she was only got the spring term off because the superintendent suggested that she should take a leave of absence and calm her nerves (Pg 1543). When Stella's husband Stanely heard this story he immediately got it checked out and found out that she was lying. What really happened was that she got involved with one of her students at school and was fired from teaching. Another lie she tells is to Stanely's friend Mitch. Mitch asks Blanche if she was just visiting Stella and Stanely, and her response was "Stella hasn't been so well lately, and I came down to help her for a while. She's very run down" (Pg 1560). The truth was that she had lost Belle Reve which was her home, and she was the one who needed someone to help her. Stanely eventually catches onto all her lies and tells Mitch the whole truth about Blanche. Toward the end of the play, Mitch goes over to see Blache and confronts her about all the lying. Blache even tells Mitch that she is lying, she states, "I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be truth" (Pg 1590). She knows that she is lying and yet she continues to lie. Mitch wanted to marry Blanche, but after all the lies he did not want to see her anymore. Blanche messed up what could have been great with Mitch over a few lies. Staying true to yourself is something that Blanche should have done.
Blanche wanted to stay looking young and beautiful, but overtime her looks began to fade and so did her youth. She was always trying to cover herself up with makeup and stayed in dark lighting. When she gets to Stella's apartment, Blanche hangs a paper lantern over the lightbulbs to darken the room up so no one can see her real age in the bright light. When Blache and Mitch started going out on dates, they always went out in the evening and never in the daylight. When Mitch comes over yelling at Blanche he says, "You never want to go out in the afternoon. I've asked you to go out with me sometimes on Sundays, but you always make an excuse. You never want to go out till after six and then it's always some place that's not lighted much" (Pg 1589), and the reason that Blanche does not want to go out is so that Mitch did not find out what she really looked like. She wanted to keep the magic between them and not let her age ruin it. Mitch tell her that he does not care about her age, but after covering it up he wants nothing to do with …show more content…
her. The last lesson to be learned is that abuse is never the answer.
Stanely is very aggressive towards Stella, but she acts like it never happened. Stanely had all his friends over for a poker night, so Stella took Blanche out for a night on the town. When they got back, the guys were still playing poker, and they had been drinking. Stanely got mad at Stella and started hitting her. Blanche took Stella up to their neighbor Eunice's apartment to stay while everyone calms down. Stella sneaks out before the night was over and goes back to Stanley (Pg 1561). The next morning Blanche asked Stella why she came back to Stanely, and she said" In the first place, when men are drinking and playing poker anything can happen. He didn’t know what he was doing. He was as good as a lamb when I came back and he's really very, very ashamed of himself" (Pg 1564). She comes up with excuses for him, so he does not seem like the bad guy. When someone is abused in a relationship it can take a toll on their mental health. When Stella keeps going back to Stanely even after the abuse, it shows that love truly is
blind. The play "A Streetcar Named Desire" is something that should be taught in schools. It is a story that is full of great life lessons that everyone needs to hear. The play shows how Blanche got into a lot of trouble by lying, and how all she needed to do was be herself but instead pretended to be someone she no longer was. Also, Stanely shows many aggressive acts toward Stella but she does not see the harm that he is doing to her. It is important to take these lessons into life and follow them. This way no trouble can occur, and life will be good. 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.
Each and every individual develops some sort of perspective and opinion on many different subjects, objects, and people throughout life. However, these perspectives are prone to change. The play, A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams is a great example of new outlooks on life making an effect on personal beliefs. It shows the denouement of two opposing perspectives and how they can eventually damage or even destroy an individual. Some ideas established by Tennessee Williams are shown by incidents such as Blanche's gay husband committing suicide, Stanley and his perspective of reality revealing the fantasy in which Blanche confides herself in, and Mitch's aspect that every individual is to be given an equal opportunity in life.
Tennessee Williams was one of the most important playwrights in the American literature. He is famous for works such as “The Glass Menagerie” (1944), “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1947) or “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)”. As John S. Bak claims: “Streetcar remains the most intriguing and the most frequently analyzed of Williams’ plays.” In the lines that follow I am going to analyze how the identity of Blanche DuBois, the female character of his play, “A Streetcar Named Desire”, is shaped.
In Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire, main character Blanche Dubois to begin with seems to be a nearly perfect model of a classy woman whose social interaction, life and behavior are based upon her sophistication. The play revolves around her, therefore the main theme of drama concerns her directly. In Blanche is seen the misfortune of a person caught between two worlds-the world of the past and the world of the present-unwilling to let go of the past and unable, because of her character, to come to any sort of terms with the present.
Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire is a overly dramatic play that concludes in a remarkable manner. The play takes off by introducing Stanley and Stella, a married couple whom live in New Orleans. They have a two-sided relationship, very loving but abusive. Then suddenly Blanche shows up, Stella’s sister, and informs Stella that their home in Belle Reve was lost. A few days later, Blanche meets and becomes attracted to Mitch, a friend of Stanley. Blanche sees Stanley as an abusive husband and contrasts him to Mitch. Blanche immediately begins to develop deep emotions for Mitch because he is very romantic and a gentleman. Blanche begins to talk to Stella because she does not want her sister to be abused.
Some critics may consider Mitch to be two dimensional in the sense that although he was partially to blame for Blanche’s unstable state of mind at the end of the play, he was not the main cause of it. Blanche appears to be slightly mad when Mitch comes to see her in scene nine, however she still has some control and is coherent enough to defend her past actions. However, after Stanley has raped her, she appears to be completely unaware of what is really going on around her ‘she’s got it mixed in her mind with Shep Huntleigh’. This shows that it was the rape which finally destroyed her, not Mitch breaking up with her.
Firstly, the reader may initially feel Blanche is completely responsible or at least somewhat to blame, for what becomes of her. She is very deceitful and behaves in this way throughout the play, particularly to Mitch, saying, ‘Stella is my precious little sister’ and continuously attempting to deceive Stanley, saying she ‘received a telegram from an old admirer of mine’. These are just two examples of Blanches’ trickery and lying ways. In some ways though, the reader will sense that Blanche rather than knowingly being deceitful, actually begins to believe what she says is true, and that she lives in her own dream reality, telling people ‘what ought to be the truth’ probably due to the unforgiving nature of her true life. This will make the reader begin to pity Blanche and consider whether these lies and deceits are just what she uses to comfort and protect herself. Blanche has many romantic delusions which have been plaguing her mind since the death of her husband. Though his death was not entirely her fault, her flirtatious manner is a major contributor to her downfall. She came to New Orleans as she was fired from...
Blanche’s immoral and illogical decisions all stem from her husband's suicide. When a tragedy happens in someone’s life, it shows the person’s true colors. Blanche’s true self was an alcoholic and sex addict, which is displayed when “She rushes about frantically, hiding the bottle in a closet, crouching at the mirror and dabbing her face with cologne and powder” (Williams 122). Although Blanche is an alcoholic, she tries to hide it from others. She is aware of her true self and tries to hide it within illusions. Blanche pretends to be proper and young with her fancy clothes and makeup but is only masking her true, broken self.
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.
Throughout Tennessee Williams’s play “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Blanche Dubois exemplified several tragic flaws. She suffered from her haunting past; her inability to overcome; her desire to be someone else; and from the cruel, animalistic treatment she received from Stanley. Sadly, her sister Stella also played a role in her downfall. All of these factors ultimately led to Blanche’s tragic breakdown in the end. Blanche could not accept her past and overcome it.
Blanche also becomes disconnected from reality because of her delusions of music and gunshots from her husband’s death. She seeks relationships with strangers in the hopes of recreating the love she had for her husband. When the relationship fails to satisfy her craving for love, she sinks further into her fantasy. When Mitch rejects her, saying “I don 't think I want to marry you anymore.” (Williams 131) she once again finds comfort in her fantasy. She has sunk so far into her fantasy that she has a response to all of Stanley’s questions. She is no longer up holding the illusion for others. She truly believes her delusions enough to maintain the façade while she is
A very important moral lesson that I gained from A Streetcar Named Desire is to always tell the truth. Telling lies ultimately got Blanche Dubois nowhere. She was lonelier than ever at the end of the play. She starts off lying intentionally. For example, she tells Stella at the beginning that the school superintendent, “suggested I take a leave of absence” from her job as a teacher (Williams 14). In reality, the principal fired her for having an affair with a student. It is suspected that she is lying and later our suspicions are confirmed. Even though a reason isn’t mentioned as to why she lies, it is probably to save herself grief from her sister or to possibly keep up her appearance. Towards the end, Blanche says she received a telegram from “an old admirer of mine... An old beau” who invited her to “A cruise of the Caribbean on a yacht” (Williams 152, 153). At this point, she even begins to believe her own lies. She has lied for so long to others and even to herself that she ultimately ends up believing them. When Tennessee Williams shows us through the sound of the polka music and the shadows on the wall what is going on in Blanche’s head, we are left to wonder if something is truly wrong. She even told Mitch that she didn’t lie in her ...
Tennessee Williams gives insight into three ordinary lives in his play, “A Streetcar Named Desire” which is set in the mid-1930’s in New Orleans. The main characters in the play are Blanche, Stanley, and Stella. All three of these characters suffer from personalities that differentiate each of them to great extremes. Because of these dramatic contrarieties in attitudes, there are mounting conflicts between the characters throughout the play. The principal conflict lies between Blanche and Stanley, due to their conflicting ideals of happiness and the way things “ought to be”.
When Blanche is stood up by Mitch and given a bus ticket to leave from Stanley, she begins to drink as she packs. Then, “a mood of hysterical exhilaration came into her and she has decked herself out in a somewhat soiled and crumpled white satin evening gown and a pair of scuffed silver slippers with brilliants set in their heels. Now she is placing the rhinestone tiara on her head,” (Williams 151). Blanche’s “soiled and crumpled white satin evening gown” and her “scuffed silver slippers” may look nice from far away, but as someone gets closer, the imperfections are revealed, just like Blanche with her looks and her lies. She places the tiara on her head to distract from the mess occurring elsewhere, similar to how Blanche lies to conceal her true, corrupt
The moment their eyes first meet, there seems to be an immediate attraction between Blanche and Mitch, causing them to take a “certain interest” in one another. After their first close encounter while the poker game is taking place, Blanche notices that Mitch is not like Stanley and the others. Telling Stella, “That one seems—superior to the others…I thought he had a sort of sensitive look” (Williams 52), Blanche takes interest in Mitch’s perceived sensitivity, and is immediately attracted
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?