Stella Kowalski In A Streetcar Named Desire

Kowalski’s need to be in control is his central personality trait, for all other parts of him branch off of it. For example, the reason Kowalski is so cruel and suspecting is he is in constant belief that someone is trying to undermine his authority. Kowalski’s suspicious nature and possessive ways are demonstrated when he accuses DuBois of withholding money from him and Stella Kowalski. Stanley Kowalski sees DuBois’s seemingly expensive clothing, including white fox pieces and a gold dress, and makes the jump that DuBois must have sold, not lost, Belle Reve, her and Stella Kowalski’s childhood home. He suspects DuBois used the money to buy the expensive jewelry and rhinestone tiara instead of giving some to Stella Kowalski and him. Stanley

Kowalski even mentions he is going to have one of his ever famous acquaintances come and appraise DuBois’s items, particularly the jewelry. Stella Kowalski pleads with Kowalski to stop, and Kowalski refutes her pleas by citing the Napoleonic Code, a code Stanley Kowalski’s beliefs are based in. The Napoleonic Code, in lay man terms, states that men should take a direct and hands on interest in their wives business. To Kowalski, getting every possible dollar from the selling of Belle Reve is Stella Kowalski’s business (Williams). Kowalski’s main motivation is also about being in charge, for when DuBois first came to live with him, Stella Kowalski was completely compliant. However, the longer DuBois stays, the less Stella Kowalski listens to him and the more she fights back. Kowalski’s main motivation, therefore, is for his life to regress back to what it was before DuBois’s arrival, when Stella was practically his slave. “I pulled you down off those columns and how you loved it, having them colored lights going! And wasn’t we happy together, wasn’t it all okay until she showed here? And wasn’t we happy together? Wasn’t it all okay? Till she showed here. Hoity-toity, describing me as an ape,” (Williams 137-38).Kowalski truly thinks he is making Stella Kowalski happy, and he probably is, for Stella Kowalski had been away from a good relationship for so long she does not know what one is. Stella Kowalski was raised privileged, but left her family as soon as possible. The reason is unclear in the play, but it can be assumed that she was dissatisfied with their extravagant ways. Kowalski, being like a predator, swoops in on Stella Kowalski and exposes her to many things she never saw in her protected previous life. Stella Kowalski associated Stanley Kowalski with these wonderful taboos and came to rely on him, partially to show her the new world she entered and partially to get back at her family. The longer Stella Kowalski stayed with Stanley Kowalski, the more she forgot about her life at Belle Reve, and the more she gave into Stanley Kowalski’s dirty life. However, when DuBois comes to live at Stella Kowalski’s home, Stella Kowalski is reminded of what cleanliness and pureness is, and begins to reject Stanley Kowalski.

Stanley Kowalski wants to keep Stella Kowalski, so he sets out to get rid of what was pulling her away-DuBois. Kowalski believes that DuBois is to blame for any disobedience he has from Stella Kowalski because DuBois has made a fool of him. She shows Stella Kowalski how Stanley Kowalski is rude and possessive by calling him things such as Polack and brute and consistently corrects his grammar and way of speech, causing Stella Kowalski to have doubts over Stanley and her relationship (Williams). DuBois treats Kowalski like an ape because that is what he acts like, and Stella Kowalski begins to see Stanley Kowalski’s Paleolithic actions and treats him as DuBois does, resulting in Kowalski retaliating with violence. DuBois also goes behind Stanley Kowalski’s back to try and get Stella Kowalski to leave him. She pleads with Stella Kowalski, saying, “He [Stanley] acts like an animal, has an animal’s habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one!” and in a desperate attempt to get Stella Kowalski to leave tells her, “Don’t- don’t hang back with the brutes” (Williams

83)! DuBois continues to plead with Stella Kowalski, and when Stanley Kowalski comes home he over hears her. This marks the true beginning of Kowalski trying to force DuBois out of his house in order to keep her from turning Stella Kowalski against him. Kowalski begins treating DuBois with unnecessary cruelty, constantly making snide remarks to her and even buying her a bus ticket home as a birthday gift (Williams). However, Kowalski’s most cruel interaction with DuBois is not even face to face, moreover he digs up DuBois’s stained past as a prostitute and tells it to Harold Mitchell, a man DuBois was dating and Stella Kowalski, her own sister, causing these people to withdraw from DuBois. Blanche DuBois is driven to craziness by Kowalski’s rumor spreading, leaving her unable to defend herself from Kowalski’s rape. Their relationship is therefore based on mistrust and hatred. DuBois dislikes Kowalski from the start and is fearful he will harm Stella Kowalski with his brutish manner, and therefore treats Kowalski as though he is below her and goes behind his back. Stanley Kowalski was hesitant of Blanche DuBois at the beginning, but as he discovers that DuBois is corrupting Stella Kowalski and turning her against him his dislike of her deepens. Stanley Kowalski then believes that Blanche Dubois must think she is superior to him, causing him to treat her with deliberate cruelty and ruin her reputation and her new life. In ruining DuBois’s reputation and in raping DuBois, Kowalski pulls DuBois off the columns, just as he did with his wife, therefore putting him back in control. The fact that Kowalski ruined DuBois’s attempt at a new life conveys the theme Williams wished to illuminate with Kowalski and DuBois’s opposing motives and interactions-that true escape is impossible. DuBois came to Elysian Fields not because of a need to see her sister, but rather to start over. Due to harsh conditions in DuBois’s hometown, she was ran out, and in Elysian Fields no one knew of DuBois’s past allowing her to find new love, new friends, and, simply, a new way of living. If not for Kowalski, DuBois would have been able to continue living in her fantasy without interference. However, Stanley Kowalski is in the story and becomes angry with DuBois, causing him to investigate her past and eventually tell everyone of her past transgressions, keeping her from truly fleeing her past life. Kowalski’s and DuBois’s mistrust of each other displays how even if one does everything possible to cover their past lives, someone will always be suspicious and bring the past to light. Williams did not decide to include the theme of escape by coincidence, moreover he chose the theme because it represents his personal life and internal struggles he had faced. William’s youth was a troubled one, for he had a mentally insane sister (the inspiration for Laura Wingfield of The Glass Menagerie), a self-obsessed mother who also had mental issues, as she was prone to fits of crying and screaming (Much like DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire) and an absentee farther. Not only did Williams have a disturbing home life, but he also struggled with the fact that he was homosexual and had difficulty accepting himself. All the negative factors of Williams’s life made him want to flee to a more peaceful place. However, he could not, and therefore wrote about his incapability to escape in many of his works, including A Streetcar Named Desire.
Communication is a needed part of life, for a life without relationships and interactions would be unimaginable, not to mention unlivable.

Therefore, in order for books to have any sense of reality, interactions must be made between characters. If they are not, the subtle mirage a book creates is stripped away. Although authors include interactions to make a work realistic for the readers, authors also employ characters for their own purposes-to bring out a theme or underlying message. Tennessee Williams author of A Streetcar Named Desire, does so with his characters Stanley Kowalski and Blanche DuBois who have a relationship built on mistrust and hatred, and bring out a theme of the inability to escape. John Knowles, author of A Separate Peace utilizes Phineas and Gene Forrester’s love-hate relationship with envious undertones to illuminate the threat of codependency. Lastly, Alice Walker, author of “Everyday Use,” uses the two part submissive and dominant relationship of Maggie and Dee to illustrate the importance of memories. A book would be nothing but blank pages if not for the interactions, benevolent and malevolent, of characters, as would one’s life be blank without the people in

it.