Stanley Kowalski Traits

Character Analysis of Stanley Kowalski From “A Street Car Named Desire”
By: Tennessee Williams
Stanley Kowalski the lead male character in the, 1948 Pulitzer Prize winning play by Tennessee Williams, starts out as a egalitarian. His physical vigor is expressed in his love of his work, his fighting, and sex.
Williams used his own family as a model for most of his characters, a violent father, a mentally ill sister, and an invalid mother. Most of his male characters are domineering and abusive, and his female characters are sensitive, frail, and unstable. Stanley is typical of Williams’s male characters. He possesses domineering physical traits, and is practical and determined in a “down to earth fashion.”
Williams’s description of Stanley

is a, “Richly feathered male bird among hens.” Stanley sizes up women and sexually classifies them to determine how he relates to them. His center of being is and always has been his pleasure with women, his power and his pride. From this center are formed all his other facets of behavior, his heartiness with men, his appreciation of rough humor, and his love of excessive drink, food, and games. Everything that is his must bare his emblem of gaudy seed-barer.
Stanley’s family is from Poland, and Stanley takes issue with, and is insulted by derogatory names like Pollock.

He actually sees himself as a social leveler, as illustrated in scene 8-page number 1825, [He hurls a plate to the floor.] “That's how I'll clear the table” [He seizes her arm] “Don't ever talk that way to me "Pig-Polack-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? Remember what Huey Long said, “Every Man is a king" And I am the king around here, so don't forget it!” [He hurls a cup and saucer to the floor] “My place is cleared! You want me to clear your

places?”
Stanley feels he represents what he feels as the new heterogeneous America. A new society to his sister in-law, Blanch, will not belong because she is a relic of a lost social hierarchy. He resents her because of the aristocratic past she represents.
As the play progresses, Stanley develops an intense hatred of Blanch motivated in part by her own untrustworthy behavior.

She attempts to fool him and his friends into thinking he is better than they are. Much of the action of the play shows Stanley’s animosity toward Blanch. Stanley first actions are his investigations and revelations of her past. He continues to show his animosity by his crude behavior at her birthday party. Stanley then demonstrates his hatred by his sabotage of her relationship with his friend Mitch.
Stanley’s character may be down to earth, but proves harmfully crude, and brutish. He has a disturbing degenerate nature underneath, this is first hinted at when he beats his wife, scene 3-page 1800, “Take it easy, Stanley, easy fellow. Let's all . . . You lay your hands on me and I’ll [She backs out of sight. He advances and disappears. There is the sound of a blow, Stella cries out. Blanche screams and runs into the kitchen. The men rush forward and there is grapping and cursing. Something is overturned with a

crash.]
The cruelty of Stanley’s degenerate nature as he rapes his sister in-law, scene 10-page 1837, “Oh! So you want some roughhouse! All right, let’s have some roughhouse! [He springs toward her, overturning the table. She cries out and strikes at him with the bottle top but he catches her wrist.] Tiger-tiger! Drop the bottle top Drop it! We've had this date with each other from the beginning! [She moans. The bottle top falls. She sinks to her knees. He picks up her inert figure and carries her to the bed. The hot trumpet and drowns from the Four Deuces sound loudly.]
Stanley lacks ideals and values. He shows no remorse for his brutal actions. The play ends with Williams depicting Stanley as the ideal family man, comforting his wife, as they hold their newborn child. The wrongfulness of this representation because of what we have learned of his character, in the progression of the play, makes the viewer call into question the way this society has decided to lock away Blanch after her break down.
Williams uses Stanley’s strength and vigor to contrast Blanches frailty and weakness. The logical cunning actions of Stanley are held up to highlight the downward spiral of Blanch. As Blanch falls into insanity, in her fabricated fantasy, Stanley rises in his cruelty and brutishness.