A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams depicts the idea that tenderness is often conquered by cruelty. Marlon Brando did an accurate job illustrating Stanley's behavior. In the screenplay, Stanley’s cruelty ultimately proves dominant by Stella staying with him. Notwithstanding, the Elia Kazan film does not comply with this theme. In the movie A Streetcar Named Desire, Marlon Brando’s portrayal of Stanley supports the theme “cruelty defeats tenderness” while the ending scene of the movie contradicts it. Marlon Brando’s appearance in the film significantly affects the overarching theme “cruelty defeats tenderness”. In the 1940’s and 1950’s Marlon Brando was the epitome of an attractive man. In the original text, Stanley hits Stella who …show more content…
In the play, Stella says, “I couldn’t believe her story and go on living with Stanley.” After Blanche tells Stella about the rape she chooses to continue living with Stanley. Stella making this decision strongly supports the theme. In both the film and the play, Stanley represents cruelty while Blanche represents tenderness. By staying with Stanley she is ultimately choosing cruelty over believing Blanche. The film contradicts this theme by its alternative ending. While Stanley is calling after Stella she says, “ I’m not going back in there again. Not this time. Never going back. Never.” Stella’s last lines indicates that she is leaving Stanley permanently. This crucial detail dwindles the significance of the theme in the play. Despite Stella staying with Stanley the first time he hit her in the film, cruelty does not ultimately prove dominant in the end. The play displays the theme cruelty defeats tenderness more effectively because of Stella remaining with the character who represents cruelty. The end of the film contradicts the theme “cruelty defeats tenderness” by Stella choosing to leave
Tennessee Williams creates a brilliant play in A Streetcar Named Desire, featuring an amazing and complex character in Stanley Kowalski. The reader must constantly reevaluate the character of Stanley Kowalski as he presents many questions to the reader throughout the play. During the play, as the conflict develops between Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski, the audience must constantly consider which character portrays the villain and which portrays the victim. "Ultimately, however, Stanley prevails. He has gotten rid of Blanche, who has lost everything, and as we see in the closing lines of the play, he is able to soothe Stella's grief, and their life goes on." (Masterplots, 6316).
told Allan "I saw, I know, you disgust me…"( p.96). To Allan, Blanche seemed to
In A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams shows two characters who have very different experiences of the world. For Stanley Kowalski, the world is a comedy. He constantly causes pain to others, especially Blanche, and then laughs at her pain. For example, he hands Blanche a ticket to Laurel as a birthday present, kicking her out of the house. To Stanley this very cruel and insensitive gesture is amusing, but to Blanche it is a hurtful token of rejection. Blanche is a character who experiences the tragedy of the world, as events affect her deeply. For instance, she can not understand how her sister, Stella, can put up with the abuse that Stanley inflicts upon her. Blanche is very concerned about her sister and becomes extremely dismayed when Stanley hits her. This shows the sensitivity of Blanche's character that leads to her tragedy.
In Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, desire leads to Blanche Dubois’ tragic downfall. Blanche’s desires led to her initiating a relationship with a far younger student. Once the affair is exposed, Blanche is sent away from Laurel, which is why she ends up taking the “street-car named Desire” to Elysian Fields (Williams 5). Once there, Blanche compulsively tries to deceive people into thinking she is attractive, youthful, and pure by formulating lies about herself. However, Stanley catches on to her falsities and exposes Blanche’s true self. Her flaws are revealed and her atrophy ensues. Blanche’s inability to overcome her desire for her student causes her to take Desire, the street-car, to Elysian Fields, where most of Blanche’s austerity occurs, so in both senses of the word, desire leads to Blanche’s downfall, and, ultimately, her mental break.
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.
An analysis of the role adversity plays in shaping an individual's identity, in Tennessee William’s play A Streetcar Named Desire
The institution is a society or organization founded for a religious education, social, or similar purpose. A Streetcar Named Desire is about family and friends who lives in New Orleans. With the main character Blanche DuBois an insecure, dislocated individual that’s just desires happiness. But guilt, depression, and lying broke Blanche away from her friends and family. By the end of the play everyone was against her and wanted her to go away into an asylum.
Furthermore, Foster stresses that in literature, violence often has multiple meanings beyond its physicality. Consequently, violence is prevalent in A Streetcar Named Desire as portrayed by Eunice and Stella's abusive husbands and Blanche's downfall. For example, Tennesse Willams depict deeper implications of violence in this play that coincide with male dominance, domestic abuse, suffocating marriages, and how society reacts to such scenarios. Notably, the violence embodied by Stanley contribute in developing the plot. As Stanley's beast-like aggressiveness is gradually revealed, Williams point out that there was no significant change in how the bystanders react. Indeed, it is evident that the characters in A Streetcar Named Desire act indifferently to the violence the male characters evoke upon women. As a result, these characters encourage the act as they fail to recognize that abuse, regardless of victim, should be unacceptable. Moreover, Williams highlights the fact that Blanche is the only character who passionately disagrees with the principle of violence. This was shown when Blanche persistently tries to convince Stella that Stanley is not the "ideal husband" Stella defends him to be. Unlike Eunice who encourages Stella to stay in her abusive marriage while Blanche was being taken away into the asylum and the poker players, besides Mitch, who show no concern to these victimized women. Hence, this contrast with the way characters react to domestic abuse embodies that society in that era are numbed and blind to the violence they witness. Disturbingly, it takes an outsider like Blanche to enlighten them that violence, is unethical. Therefore, the significance of violence in A Streetcar Named Desire, as supported by Foster's analyzations, is to demand a change.
Blanche has a traumatic dark past. She pretends to be someone that she wasn't to escape reality and mask her true colours. She has been through life changing experiences that emotionally and mentally effected her and shaped who she is in the present time.
Romantic love is the centre of conflict and takes many forms in A Streetcar Named Desire, Wuthering and Much Ado about Nothing. Despite these three texts being of different genres they present romance similarly. In A Streetcar Named Desire, the audience perceive that Stanley’s and Stella’s relationship is mostly based on physical attraction. We recognise this when Stanley says that he wants to get rid of Blanche so that he and Stella “can make noise in the night” without Blanche “behind the curtains to hear us!” the staging her demonstrates that there is no privacy in their small apartment as the only barrier between Stanley and Blanch is “the curtain”, this would create the effect of claustrophobia and make the audience feel uncomfortable. So Stanley sees that their marriage is suffering when Blanche is in the picture as they cannot relate to each other the way they used to. The conflict between Stanley and Stella is provoked by Blanche’s presence as she disturbs the power he has over Stella and she flirts with Mitch. This causes his outburst of violence which results in Stella getting punched as a “sound of a blow” is heard, despite the fact that Stella “is going to have a baby” thus he is not scared to put the welfare of Stella and his unborn child at risk just to impress Blanch. This shows just how desperate he is to impress Blanch and demonstrate his masculinity through his outburst of violence to show that he has power in their relationship. Comparably in Much Ado about Nothing, Claudio and Hero’s romance is also based on appearance, when Claudio meets Hero for the first time in the play he tells Benedick “In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on” So despite never having met her before the start of the pla...
A main theme in Tennessee William’s play A Streetcar Named Desire is the theme of masculinity. In Scene Three, Williams introduces “The Poker Night” (this is later shown to have been a possible different title of the play.) Scene Three is foreshadowing the end of the play. In these pages we get an insight into Stanley and Stella’s submissive relationship. We are shown the power of masculinity at that time through stage directions, the lighting, large dialogue and the descriptive way the room is described at the beginning of the scene. The audience can deduce that this is a night where men are strongly involved, as at this particular time period poker was still very much a game dominated by men.
Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire is a play that needs no introduction. This complex piece of drama is most readily associated with Marlon Brando’s iconic portrayal of Stanley Kowalski’s lamenting cry in the streets of New Orleans. Stanley screams STELL-LAHHHHH!, and his “heavenly-splitting violent” cry only emphasizes the voicelessness of the female characters (Williams 2322). Despite Blanche’s ability to hold her own in verbal sparring matches or Stella’s lively demeanor, both women are oppressively held under the thumbs of various men.
Condemnation is given to those who display harshness and cruelty, within their treatment of others. Through the play A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams portrays the many ways one can hurt a person, but all of them result in the destruction of the victim. Using the characters Blanche, Mitch and Stanley, Williams cautions his readers of the devastating effects of cruelty on the target. Both physical and mental obliteration are results of cruelty, whether it is deliberate or unintentional.
In many pieces of literature, two contradicting sides often play a major role in story and character development; Tennessee Williams is able to apply this concept in A Streetcar Named Desire. The characters of Stanley and Blanche can be easily identified as polar opposites of each other. Blanche is a complex, sophisticated character, while Stanley can be seen as primal, simple, and sometimes animalistic. Tennessee Williams is able to use the opposition of Blanche and Stanley to build the rest of the story and characters.
Throughout the play Blanche struggles with her past sexual desires and when she meets Mitch, who like herself has also lost love, she sees a possibility of hope that she may be able to close the chapter of her deviant past and start a fresh, new life. The new hope of love is stopped when Stanley intervenes and tells Mitch of Blanche’s undesirable past. It seems all realistic thoughts have been completely lost for her and her reality fades completely. Ultimately, she is unable to overcome her desires, holier than though attitude, and after a heated argument is raped by her brother-in-law Stanley. With no one believing her side of the story, she is sent to a mental hospital in hopes of recovery. Although you may pity Blanche as the hopeless victim there are times where you are shown the role she plays in her own demise of reality. Williams’s themes of gambling, bowling, sexual desires, and drinking set the tone of this play expressing an ideal form of masculinity. Once Stanley enters into the play you automatically understand him as the everyday working class, dominant, possessive head of household. Stanley’s rough attitude towards