Soyinka and Williams present their main characters, Blanche and Elesin, as victims of their own delusions by showing how they do not live in reality, but in their own worlds and how they never listen to anyone else when given advice. These two characters seem unstable in one way or another and their endings are unhappy ones. There are also times where these characters are completely different and their lives juxtapose one another.
Blanche and Elesin are very similar as their delusions start off with both of them enjoying a good and expensive life. Both these characters relied on their lifestyle to get through life and fulfil their duties. In ‘Death and the King’s Horseman’ (DKH), Elesin has any woman he wishes and he decides to impregnate a woman already betrothed, to leave his mark on the world. One of the phrases that can be picked out is the “seeds of passage” which not only represents the fertility of Elesin’s new bride, but how when the king passes to the ancestral world, another child comes from the unborn world into the living world. Elesin believes in his mind that he will die a ‘hero’ for doing his duty of escorting the deceased king through to the ancestral world and that the child he will allow into the world will grow up to be like him, a ‘great person’. This delusion never fully happens; Elesin dies in a rotting cell, dishonourably, leaving his pregnant wife. “Forget the dead. Turn you mind only to the unborn.” This is important as it is believed if the baby doesn’t approve of the living world they can choose to die and go back to the other world, so the bride has to concentrate on the next generation. Soyinka was also told of the King, who died, and his horseman was supposed to carry out the suicide ritual but when t...
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...eir defeat, Elesin defeated by culture (the British district officer) and Blanche by Stanley raping her and her delusions being her reality. Yoruba cultures would see DKH as very contradictory and would probably not agree as they wouldn’t like to be portrayed like mad people who always commit suicide. They may also have a negative view on western culture in ASND as they may find the nature of the play unsuitable for audiences and only learn about this new culture in a negative way. British people may find DKH an un-relatable play considering how it is based in another completely different culture and may also not appreciate the view given of the British about other cultures. Also, for ASND, they may find this play difficult as it is a very relatable play in today’s society, but this may also influence their decisions for the future and for future decisions.
told Allan "I saw, I know, you disgust me…"( p.96). To Allan, Blanche seemed to
Isn't it true the relationship between Stella and Stanley is praiseworthy, since it combines sexual attraction with compassion for the purpose of procreation? Isn't it true that as opposed to Stanley's normalcy in marriage, Blanche's dalliance in sexual perversion and overt efforts to break up Stanley and Stella's marriage is reprehensible? Isn't it true that Stella's faulty socialization resulting in signs of hysteria throughout the play meant that she probably would have ended her life in a mental hospital no matter whether the rape had occurred or not?
To conclude, the author portrays Blanche’s deteriorating mental state throughout the play and by the end it has disappeared, she is in such a mental state that doctors take her away. Even at this stage she is still completely un-aware of her surroundings and the state she is in herself.
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
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.
Whether youth, gender roles, wealth or status, both characters are in a struggle with securing what society deems valuable. They are so caught up with their past and repairing or not repeating mistakes that their present lives take a back seat and those around them suffer. The antagonist of stories that describe Blanche and Amanda’s personalities is society. Society places lofty expectations on everyone to be things they cant or don’t want to be and Williams portrays this brilliantly in these two plays. Amanda and Blanche are mired by perpetual escapism because their harsh reality is that they will never fill the voids that society created for them.
In Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire,” paper lanterns, kitchen candles, and multicolored strobes reveal the various shades of reality surrounding Blanch DuBois. When Blanche visits her sister, Stella, and Stanley Kowalski’s modest apartment in New Orleans, tension regarding her mental stability immediately emerges. Blanche cloaks the apartment’s harsh light with a paper lantern, which initially suggests the fervency of her insecurity regarding physical beauty; however, this dim light eventually evolves to expose her unwillingness to embrace reality, one of Blanche’s principal character flaws that stems from the devastating suicide of her former husband. While recounting her husband’s tragedy, Blanche heavily relies on light imagery to accentuate the suicide’s influence on her existence. Towards the play’s conclusion, Mitch destroys the paper lantern and forces Blanche to candidly expose her deteriorated mentality, thus commencing Blanche’s downfall into hysteria. Blanche DuBois’ aversion to light, an element which epitomizes the concept of transparent reality, reveals her superficiality and exposes her capricious mentality, ultimately perpetuating the theme that willful deception leads to unstable reality.
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.
The first principle character in this play is Blanche DuBois. She is a neurotic nymphomaniac that is on her way to meet her younger sister Stella in the Elysian Fields. Blanche takes two 2 streetcars, one named Desire, the other Cemeteries to get to her little sisters dwelling. Blanche, Stella and Stanley all desire something in this drama. Blanche desired a world without pain, without suffering, in order to stop the mental distress that she had already obtained. She desires a fairy tale story about a rich man coming and sweeping her off her feet and they ride away on a beautiful oceanic voyage. The most interesting part of Blanche is that through her unstable thinking she has come to believe the things she imagines. Her flashy sense of style and imagination hide the truly tragic story about her past. Blanche lost Belle Reve but, moreover, she lost the ones she loved in the battle. The horror lied not only in the many funerals but also in the silence and the constant mourning after. 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 faced pain.
Carlos and his mother met for the DD Intake at the Laburnum office. Carlos is a 7 year- old who attends Radcliff Elementary School. Carlos doesn't use his words to communicate. Yesterday he received a communication device paid for by Medicaid and he receives ABA Therapy 3x a week provided by Family Insight. Carlos's mother seemed disappointed in Carlos performance on the VIDES worksheet; as she shook her head and sighed. He pointed randomly at the objects on the worksheet and used his communication device twice to say, "Stop".
The drama is basically about a married couple -Stella and Stanley Kowalski- who are visited by Stella's older sister, Blanche. The drama shows the caustic feelings of these people putting Blance DuBois in the center. The drama tells the story of the pathetic mental and emotional demise of a determined, yet fragile, repressed and delicate Southern lady born to a once-wealthy family of Mississippi planters.3 No doubt that the character of Blanche is the most complex one in the drama. She is truly a tragic heroine.
Blanche uses her fantasies as a shield; and her desires as her motivation to survive. Her fading beauty being her only asset and chance of finding stability. Stella’s relationship with Stanley also emphasis the theme Williams created in this book. They’re only bond is physical desire and nothing at all intellectual or deep rooted. Tennessee Williams exemplifies that their relationship which only springs from desire doesn’t make it any weaker. He also creates a social dichotomy of the relationship between death and desire.
Through explicit and detailed staging directions, the setting reflects the Puritan’s and a New Southerner’s lifestyle based on exterior and interior visual imagery. The “raw and unmellowed”(Miller 3) wood of Salem’s houses versus the “white frame, weathered gray” and “faded white stairs”(Williams 13) of New Orleans’ houses introduces a society in a new settlement, with the latter in the older, poorer part of town. The interior of Salem’s houses with just “the bed...a chest, a chair, and a small table”(Miller 3) of Rev. Parris’ home and the “plain bench[s], long meeting table, with stools”(Miller 77) of the meeting house are simple, tidy and minimally decorated to reflect the avoidance of beauty and lust away from religious belief. Ironically, it is through the lack of a free and imaginative setting that sparks the Salem girl’s imagination and the act of pretending to rebel against their restrictive society.
The main characters, the grandmother and Mrs. Loisel are indeed very similar, both characters reject the idea to admitting to a mistake they had created. Both women have the same motivation Before their misfortune. The fact that they both were being selfish, is what cause them to
First, suspense one of the most annoying yet amazing part of a narrative/movie. Suspense is a state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what may happen “I will not lose my nerve. I will not.” (32). Suspense plays a huge part in this story. Throughout the whole story suspense is everywhere, it’s in a tree and on the ground and in the air and just all around. One scene Rainsford is in a tree while Zaroff was right next to him about to be alerted by Zaroff. “If you are within the sound of my voice I congratulate you” (33). Rainsford made a trap to distract/kill Zaroff and it ended up wounding him causing him to say what he said. Not one person has made it that far according to Zaroff.