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Themes of streetcar named desire
Main themes of a streetcar named desire
Characteriztion through streetcar named desire
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A Streetcar Named Desire is a classic tragedy written by Tennessee Williams, which earned him the Pulitzer Prize as well as many other awards. This brilliant play explores many important themes and issues. The main recurring theme Williams explores to the readers is the conflict between fantasy and reality, honesty and lies. However, sexuality, violence, and social differences also shape the action of the plot, in which they contribute to the effect of the characters of the play. The three main characters, Blanche Dubois, Stella Kowalski, and Stanley Kowalski, have different ways of dealing with the said conflicts in their harsh surroundings in which they live in, as they all face different crisis. Blanche, who suffers from emotional and inner …show more content…
He is the reflected image of what the society is made of, not what it should be. He represents the lower class of society, but is very dedicated to his wife and widely enjoys playing poker, bowling, sex, and drinking, but lacks ethics and imagination. At the start of the play, he appears to be an ordinary family man and reader may have seen him as the protagonist. However, as the play progresses the readers are able to observe his true side. Stanley is portrayed as a very masculine character, who feels that everything that goes on around him should be his way, and has strong belief in male dominance. He constantly controls and possesses everything that surrounds him, like his liquor, his home, and especially his wife. He treats Stella like a puppet. He feels the need to be in control for his survival. When he said, “‘Every Man is a King!’ And I am the king around here, so don’t forget it!” (page 107, scene 8) he makes it clear that he is the “king” of the house and their marriage. Thus, when Stanley feels like he is being mistreated and his domination is questioned, he becomes violent and destroys everything that comes in his way. He cannot stand losing, whether it is just a poker game, an argument, or his dominance. For example, when Stella refused to turn off the radio, like Stanley asked her to, he aggressively threw the radio and beat her. While Blanche was staying at their …show more content…
During her teenage years, Stella runs away from her high-class living in Mississippi to live in New Orleans, with no regrets. There, she married lower-class Stanley and has a strong sexual relationship with him. During the play, Stella is torn between her sister and her husband. In the conflict between Blanche and Stanley, Stella is caught in the middle trying to make peace between them. Moreover, Blanche and Stanley constantly fight over getting Stella’s love and affection. For instance, in scene four, during a long conversation of Blanche counselling Stella to leave Stanley for his detrimental, sub-human ways, Stanley was standing outside ease-dropping on their conversation. When he finally comes in, Stella “embraces him with both arms, fiercely, and full in the view of Blanche. Over her head he grins through the curtains at Blanche.” (126). When he grins at her, he shows that he has possessed Stella and that he has won that battle. Stella obviously loves and defends both of them during these battles. She advocates Stanley when Blanche tells her to leave him, saying she wants to continue to stay in their relationship, "I'm not in anything, I want to get out of" (65) and tells her that she loves him. Nevertheless, she stands up for Blanche when Stanley is unkind to her. She tells him that "people like you abused her and forced her to change." (111) when he gave her a one-way bus ticket to Laurel. She begs
He makes no motion to stop, runs up the stairs and explains to his wife what’s going on, similar to what would occur in an equal relationship. Instead, he continues down the street like a boy with no responsibilities. Stella yells, “Where are you going,” and then asks if she could come to watch, he agrees but doesn’t stop waiting for her. This scene demonstrates how Stella follows Stanley along, and serves him according to what he wishes to do and when he wants to do it. In scene three, Stanley is having his poker party (pg. 57).
...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).
Stanley oftenly abuses Stella whenever he is drunk. One night, Stanley brings his friends over for a poker night. Mitch leaves the table in order to talk to Blanche. Stanley begins to get furious since Mitch is no longer playing. As more and more interruptions keep occurring, Stanley is furious and breaks the radio Blanche and Mitch were using. Stella then calls Stanley an animal. “He advances and disappears. There is a sound of a blow. Stella cries out.”(57) Stanley is usually abusive when he's either drunk or frustrated. After Stanley strikes her, Stella leaves the house and goes to her neighbors house. Blanche follows her sister upstairs to support Stella so she does not feel alone. Stanley then calms down and calls for Stella to come back. She returns and falls into Stanley's arms. Stella is very loyal to Stanley, she stays with him because he is her husband and does not want to change that. This is why she ignores her sister's pleas. Stanleys actions prove to the reader that he is an abusive husband to Stella and that Stella tolerates
He embodies the traits found in a world of old fashioned ideals where men were meant to be dominant figures." It was also justified with the scenes that included the interactions between Stanley and the other women in the play. In the first scene Stanley tosses the meat at Stella which displays his barbaric side. This behavior can be compared with the characteristics of a caveman that brings dead meat into the cave after a good
In this scene, Stella blindly defends Stanley against Blanche after being beaten up by him in front of the poker crowd. Keeping in mind that Stella was pregnant at that time, the domestic abuse in their marriage not only highlights Stanley’s disrespect towards women but also his lack of remorse in harming an extremely vulnerable mother. In spite of this fact, Stella still defends Stanley and downplays his behavior to a metaphorically tamed lamb. Thus, Stella’s denial of Stanley’s real character exhibits that this may not be the first time Stella experienced brutal force in the duration of their marriage. Hence, the usage
The character Stanley represents the theme of reality. Stanley Kowalski is the simple blue-collar husband of Stella. His actions, reactions, and words show reality in its harshest most purist form. His actions are similar to a primitive human. For example he doesn’t close the door when he uses the restroom. This rudeness represents the harsh reality that Blanche refuses to accept. Moreover, when he was drunk he hit Stella. This attack on Blanches sister could be a symbolic “wake up” slap to the face of Blanche.
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.
Stella, Stanley's wife in the play, is a passive woman. She is displayed this way through how she responds to the people and situations around her. When she is beaten by Stanley, she understands that his drunkenness takes hold of him and he has no control over his actions. She knows he never means her harm and his intentions are good.
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 William’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.
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”.
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.
Stella looks at Stanley’s aggression as a sexual notion and her obedience to her husband Blanche notes to be “Lunacy, absolute lunacy!” (Williams 67) Stella is initially caught in the middle between the main protagonists however, “Stella’s sexuality is approved because she is sexual in response to her husband….in the famous staircase scene, the presentation is of a dutiful wife obeying her husband. Additionally, her pregnancy legitimizes her sexuality.” (Leibman 30)
3. How might we get to the bald truth/reality of Stanley and Stella 's relationship during the poker game? How are we supposed to understand Stella 's motivation for being/staying with Stanley, despite his physical abusiveness? (that is, on what is their relationship based/founded/sustained)? How does the discovery of these things affect the relationship between Blanche and Stella, and why is this important?
The conflict between Stanley and Stella climaxes in scene ten. In this scene Stanley openly takes Blanche apart piece by piece he begins with unenthusiastic comments such as "Swine huh?