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A streetcar named desire characters' portrayal
Analysis of a streetcar named desire
Analysis of a streetcar named desire
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Tennessee Williams; poignant modern play “A Streetcar Named Desire” explores the relationship between an individual’s capacity for resilience and their ability to empathize with others. Williams characterizes Stanley Kowalski as a rough and stubborn man in order to depict how an individual’s lack of empathy for others can negatively affect their ability to handle hardship. Stanley’s loyalty to his friends, and passion for his wife, are all endangered by Blanche’s arrival and her judgmental view of him and his life. Stanley’s “animal” and “primitive” nature are central to his identity, which is evident in his work, and of brawling. He doesn't appreciate when Blanche calls him a ‘polack’. He lacks resilience because when Blanche calls him a …show more content…
‘pollack’ he doesn't get over it, and he starts explaining her that people from Poland are called ‘poles’. Instead he makes Blanche look outdated and illiterate by contending that he was born and raised in America. Stanley represents the current America to Blanche where she and her ideas and perception do not belong. His prime amusements are gambling, poker nights, bowling, wild sex, and drinking. Stanley’s ruthless behavior indicates his lack of resilience and is motivated by Blanche’s secrecy past. Stanley thinks he is over smart as describes the ‘Napoleonic code’ to Blanche in which it would permit him to own his wife’s wealth. Stanley’s bitterness against Blanche illustrates the negative empathy he has for her. Stanley lack of resilience and the ability to become less empathetic is evident in his actions towards- the investigations of her past which he did with the help of his ‘supply’ man, disruption of her relationship with Mitchell. Blanche got on Stanley’s grit right off the bat as she called him a ‘polack’. Stanley holds grievance for Blanche which makes him have negative empathy for Blanche. Being not resilient at all influences an individual’s competence to be empathetic. Stanley and Blanche repeatedly oppose each other, they are each other’s foil, and their divergences ultimately lead to molesting Blanche.
Conflicts first arise when Blanche reached at Stanley’s house and right away Stanley’s empowerment is challenged who always had control over his house, and more importantly on Stella, his wife. Stanley’s complicating nature was first hinted when he beats his wife, which is not alarming and is evident that he molested his sister-in-law. Blanche offended Stanley right away as he was called a ‘polack’ by him. Blanche also opposes Stanley as she described him ‘animal thing’. A visible section of conflict between Blanche and Stanley occurred over ‘Belle Reve’ and Stanley’s ‘Napoleonic code’ argument. Blanche repeatedly told Stanley that she lost everything in ‘Belle Reve’ but she didn't have any validation to go with her fiction. Another precise conflict is when Stanley ‘investigated’ Blanche past in which he found out that Blanche is a prostitute as she doesn't want ‘light’ to shine on her ‘realism’ and how Blanche was always dependent on the ‘kindness’ of ‘strangers’ because no one empathized with her. Blanche’s presence was so unacceptable for Stanley that he even had to buy her a ‘bus ticket’ so she could leave, this indicates that Stanley neither had empathy left for Blanche nor was resilient to what happened at the start. In the end their personalities did not go hand in hand, neither of them views their life the same way. There were too many differences among them to allow them to get along. They were directly created to foil each
other. From the play’s opening Stanley and Stella always had a stiff marriage. At the end Stanley’s stubborn nature proved to be severely cheap and rude as he molested Blanche. Stanley shows no regrets for his vicious actions. The story ends with representing Stanley as the ideal family man, holding his wife as Stella holds their newborn baby. There was no empathy for Blanche as her own sister couldn’t ‘believe’ that Stanley ‘raped’ her. Stanley realized that he has had this ‘date’ with Blanche from the ‘beginning’ and he could not take it anymore. His resilience was challenged right away with Blanche’s arrival Tennessee Williams play was centered on the conflict between Stanley and Blanche. Stanley’s lack of resilience and empathy was motivated by Blanche’s actions. It indicates that an individual’s empathy can be shaped by an individual’s ability to be resilient.
Or, as Mary Ann Corrigan later puts it [as does Judith J. Thompson, 38], the Blanche-Stanley struggle is purely an external dramatization of what is going on inside Blanche’s head: “the external events of the play, while actually occurring, serve as a metaphor for Blanche’s internal conflict” [Corrigan, 392]. Critics who share Sharp’s and Corrigan’s views feel that Streetcar is essentially a psychological drama about Blanche’s internal struggle with herself.”
...ices, such an attempt to elicit sympathy for this monster falls short” (Bell 2). Stanley is looked at as the monster of the play which is how he should be viewed. Luck was not on Blanches side through her life which made her make the mistakes she made. Even though her past was not clean, Stanley did not purge her of this. He tried to show her the reality of the world, but through his brutal treatment, only made her sensibility worse. Stanley is a primitive ape-like man, driven only by instinct, who views women as objects and has no respect for others. He is a wife batter and a rapist who is responsible for the crumbling sanity of Blanche who is “the last victim of the Old South, one who inherits the trappings of that grand society but pays the final price for the inability to adapt to a modern world that seeks to wipe grace and gentility out of existence” (Bell 2).
Blanche one day tells Stella that she shouldn't stay with Stanley because he shouldn't treat his wife abusively, especially when she's pregnant. Blanche describes in full detail that he “acts like an animal,has animal habits! Eats like one, moves like one, and talks like one!” (74) All that Blanche wants to do is speak to Stella so she does not put up with the domestic abuse. Blanche feels that Stella does not deserve to be mistreated by her husband. Williams excellent use of diction most certainly proves how Stanley is both an animal and an abusive husband to Stella. Although Stella feels mistreated and abused, she never considers leaving Stanley because she has a great desire for him no matter his abusive actions. Stella at times finds herself the cause of Stanley's actions. She feels that she's the reason why Stanley hits and abuses
He said “Pig-Polack-disgusting-vulgar-greasy…Remember what Heuy Long said-“Every Man is a King!” And I am the King around here, so don’t forget it! My place is cleared! You want me to clear your places?”(Williams131). This proves that Stanley has a violent and disrespectful character. He claims that he is the man of the house and no one else can take his place even temporarily. Every time his dominance is doubted by someone else he feels challenged and impulsive. Especially with women, he gives them no respect but expects their respect and shows a deep desire for control. This relates to the thesis because he talks and acts with women in a very violent way, which makes them emotionally hurt. This scene is also very ironic because Stanley states that he is not an animal and that he is a hundred percent perfect American but in reality he has an inhuman behavior and he is savage, which is portrayed in the way he talks, eats , and acts with
Resiliency is one concept that has never been the human races forte. Many things that happen in our current day and age require a great deal of perseverance and resiliency. People often will give in to the problems in their lives and learn to accept them, instead of persevering through them and working out the issues. The fact of the matter is, if you learn to persevere through problems, your life will be a lot more happy and pleasant to live. In Tennessee Williams’ play, “ A Streetcar Named Desire” suggests that you cannot give up on issues; you must be resilient to those issues and persevere to be happy.
In Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams uses the suicide of Blanche's husband to illuminate Blanche's insecurities and immoral behavior. When something terrible happens to someone, it often reveals who he or she truly is. Blanche falls victim to this behavior, and she fails to face her demons. This displays how the play links a character’s illogical choices and their inner struggles.
In one conversation with Blanche, Blanche subtly insults him. He realizes this and thunders “Now let’s cut the re-bop!” (40) and scaring Blanche in the moment. With his loud, booming voice, Stanley is able to cause Blanche to cover her ears in pain and exhibit that he is powerful enough to be able to cause discomfort by merely raising his voice and putting her back in her place. Stanley obviously doesn’t do well with insults to his name because when Stella calls him a drunk animal, “Stanley charges after Stella… There is the sound of a blow… [and] the men rush forward and there is grappling and cursing” (63). It is obvious here that Stanley doesn’t like to be compared to an animal and began to take action to prove that that isn’t what you say to someone like him. However, it is ironic that his reaction is very animalistic in order to convey his strength and the magnitude of his masculinity towards his woman and towards the other men as he shakes them off. Another similar instance is when they were at the dinner table for Blanche’s birthday supper and he exclaims “Don’t you ever talk that way to me… I am the king around here, so don’t forget it” (131)!
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.
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.
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”.
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
Empathy is a fundamental human connection, it allows us to strengthen relationships and build a stronger character. In Tennessee Williams play Streetcar Named Desire Blanche is weakened by the lack of a basic human trait. The lack of empathy that Blanche gives and receives greatly affects her poor resilience to Hardships in her life. Thus, causing her to be an emotional train wreck and a highly flawed character. Blanche often receives no empathy through her character because of her inability to empathize with others; this is demonstrated by her relationship with her husband, her sister, brother in law Stanley, and the death of her family. Through these Devastating events she searches for empathy in all the wrong places. Her struggle without
Stanley (Stella's husband) represents a theme of realism in the play; he is shown as a primitive, masculine character that is irresistible to Stella and on some levels even to his "opponent" Stella's sister Blanche.