Intimacy in A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams

1366 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Tensions between characters in a streetcar named desire

Intimacy

Tennessee Williams used his life experiences to write many successful plays. One of his most successful plays is A Streetcar Named Desire. In this play Williams relates the characters closely to his father, mother, and sister. William’s father was a gambler, a drunk, and very aggressive. Williams’s mother was a Southern Bell and looked down upon people that were not like her, and his sister was suffering from psychological disorders. Stanley is like William’s father, Blanche is like William’s mother and sister, and Allan, Blanche’s dead husband, is like Tennessee Williams. Suchitra Choudhury says that “Tennessee Williams’ plays are acknowledged to be substantially constituted of violence and victimization. . . . Williams’s plays very often end in what seems to be victimization.” The play A Streetcar Named Desire is a classic example of violence and victimization. Stanley is very violent and Blanche is the victim, her past haunting her in the present. Throughout the play we see how Blanche evolves into what seems to be a psychotic breakdown at the end. We see how the need for intimacy ultimately causes her to become psychotic. Blanche struggles with the death of her husband Allan, and as a result she is constantly trying to create a reality of what she believes life should be like. How does the past affect Blanche in the present?

Blanche strives to deny the past and build a new life for herself, one that she perceives to be what she deserves. Blanche’s promiscuity in Laurel is the result of her constant search for intimacy, not just sex. Blanche struggles with guilt that it is her fault her husband Allan commits suicide. Even though Stella and Stanley and even Eunice and Steve have what she thinks are horrible relatio...

... middle of paper ...

...n, Leonard. The Tragic Downfall of Blanche Dubois, Modern

Drama, Vol. 10, No. 2, December, 1967, pp. 24957.

http://galenet.galegroup.com.ezproxy.maconstate.edu/servlet/LitRC?locID=maco12153&ADVST2=NA&srchtp=adv&c=6&stab=512&ASB2=AND&DT=Criticism_select&ADVSF2=tennessee+williams&docNum=H1100001574&ADVSF1=a+streetcar+named+desire&ADVST1=TW&bConts=514&vrsn=3&ASB1=AND&ste=74&tbst=asrch&tab=2&ADVST3=NA

Choudhury, Suchitra. A Streetcar Named Desire. Great Neck Publishing

http://proxygsu-mac1.galileo.usg.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=25997558&site=ehost-live">Literary Contexts in Plays: Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire".

Williams, Tennessee. A streetcar Named Desire. The Norton Introduction to Literature. 9th Edition. Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, Kelly J. Mays Ed. NewYork. W. W. Norton, 2005 (1539-1602)

Show More
Related

  • Gender Roles in The Yellow Wallpaper and A Streetcar Named Desire

    1527 Words  | 4 Pages

    Williams, Tennessee. "A Streetcar Named Desire." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. 2337-2398.

    Read More

  • A Streetcar Named Desire Research Paper

    1119 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Blanche's State of Mind in Tennessee Williams’ Play, A Streetcar Named Desire

    963 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Relationships in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire

    604 Words  | 2 Pages

    Relationships in A Streetcar Named Desire In many modern day relationships between a man and a woman, there is usually a controlling figure that is dominant over the other. It may be women over men, men over women, or in what the true definition of a marriage is an equal partnership. In the play A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, Stanley is clearly the more dominant figure over Stella.

    Read More

  • Death in A Streetcar Named Desire

    1094 Words  | 3 Pages

    This statement also emphasises much of Blanche’s own views on sorrow and explains how it has affected her life since she has made the comment from personal experience. To conclude, Tennessee Williams’ dramatic use of death and dying is an overarching theme in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire,’ from which everything about Blanche’s character has formed from. Without the death of Allan, Blanche would not have resorted to prostitution and the brief affairs with strangers, also the deaths of her family have driven Blanche to Stella’s where she is “not wanted” and “ashamed to be”. Therefore these dramatic deaths have lead to the past which comes back to haunt

    Read More

  • Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire - Ghosts of the Past

    995 Words  | 2 Pages

    Our lives are consumed by the past. The past of what we once did, what we once accomplished, and what we once could call our own. As we look back on these past memories we seldom realize the impact these events have on our present lives. The loss of a past love mars are future relationships, the loss of our family influences the choices we make today, and the loss of our dignity can confuse the life we live in the present. These losses or deaths require healing from which you need to recover. The effects of not healing can cause devastation as apparent in the play A Streetcar Named Desire. The theme of A Streetcar Named Desire is death. We encounter this idea first with the death of Blanche and Stella's relationship as sisters. Blanche and Stella had a life together once in Bel Reve and when Stella decided to move on in her life and leave, Blanche never could forgive her. This apparent in the scene when Blanche first arrives in New Orleans and meets Stella at the bowling alley. Stella and Blanche sit down for a drink and we immediately see Blanche's animosity towards Stella. Blanche blames Stella for abandoning her at Bel Reve, leaving Blanche to handle the division of the estate after their parents die. As result of Stella's lack of support, we see Blanche become dependent on alcohol and lose her mental state. Blanche comes to be a a terrible reck through out the play as we learn of the details of her life at Bel Reve. Her loss of the entire estate and her struggle to get through an affair with a seventeen year old student. This baggage that Blanche carries on her shoulders nips at Stella through out eventually causing the demise of her relationship. As Blanche's visit goes on with Stella, the nips become too great and with the help of Stanley, Stella has Blanche committed to a mental hospital, thus symbolizing the death of the realtionship they once had. The next death we encounter in the film is the death of Stella and Stanley's marriage. Our first view of Stanley is of an eccentric man, but decent husband who cares deeply for his wife. However, as as Blanche's visit wears on, we come to see the true Stanley, violent and abusive.

    Read More

  • Character Conflict in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire

    572 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Blanche Dubois: A Tragic Hero

    876 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Ethical Lessons in A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

    1143 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams

    734 Words  | 2 Pages

    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”.

    Read More

  • The Desires in A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

    738 Words  | 2 Pages

    One cant imagine how it must feel to lose the ones they love and hold dear, but to stay afterwards and mourn the loss of the many is unbearable. Blanche has had a streak of horrible luck. Her husband killing himself after she exposed her knowledge about his homosexuality, her advances on young men that led to her exile and finally her alcoholism that drew her life to pieces contemplated this sorrow that we could not help but feel for Blanche throughout the drama. Blanche’s desire to escape from this situation is fulfilled when she is taken away to the insane asylum. There she will have peace when in the real world she only faces pain.

    Read More

  • Symbolism in A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

    3836 Words  | 8 Pages

    During the late nineteen-forties, it was common for playwrights such as Tennessee Williams to use symbolism as an approach to convey personal thoughts, through the attitudes of the characters and the setting. Williams' actors have used symbolism to disguise the actuality of their thoughts and to accommodate the needs of their conservative audience. A Streetcar Named 'Desire' has a few complicated character traits and themes. Therefore, they have to be symbolised using figures or images to express abstract and mystical ideas, so that the viewers can remain clueless. Williams not only depicts a clear personality of the actors

    Read More

  • Theme Of Betrayal In A Streetcar Named Desire

    1059 Words  | 3 Pages

    One character that has been plagued by betrayal, throughout her entire existence, is Blanche. Blanche’s husband, Allen, first betrays her. She catches him with another man and then shortly after he commits suicide. Being one of the influences behind his death, Blanche began to carry the guilt around with her. Their young love blinds them and hides all the obstacles they had to face. After catching him, she felt like she had lost part of herself, and after he shot himself, she felt like she

    Read More

  • A Streetcar Named Desire: Sympathy for Blanche

    600 Words  | 2 Pages

    During scene one, the audience is introduced to Blanche as Stella's sister, who is going to stay with her for a while. Blanch tries her best to act normal and hide her emotion from her sister, but breaks down at the end of scene one explaining to Stella how their old home, the Belle Reve, was "lost." It is inferred that the home had to be sold to cover the massive funeral expenses due to the many deaths of members of the Dubois family. As Blanche whines to her sister, "All of those deaths! The parade to the graveyard! Father, mother! Margaret, that dreadful way!" (21). The audience sees this poor aging woman, who has lost so many close to her, and now her home where she grew up. How could anyone look at her, and not feel the pain and suffering that she has to deal with by herself? Williams wants the audience to see what this woman has been through and why she is acting the way she is. Blanche's first love was also taken from her. It seems that everyone she loves is dead except for her sister. Death plays a crucial role in Blanche's depression and other mental irregularities. While these circumstances are probably enough for the audience to feel sympathy for Blanche, Williams takes it a step further when we see Blanche's...

    Read More

  • Conflict Between Blanche And Stanley In A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

    993 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire" two of the main characters Stanley and Blanche persistently oppose each other, their differences eventually spiral into Stanley's rape of Stella.

    Read More

More about Intimacy in A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams

Open Document