Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Theatre analysis full essay
Characterisation in the play A Streetcar Named Desire
Theatre analysis full essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Theatre analysis full essay
"Do you think me, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless?" (Bronte). In this Charlotte Bronte quote you can see that social class is a determining factor in a person's view towards another. The rich look down at the poor as obscure and worthless due to their social class. This is evident in the world famous play A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams through the colliding personalities between the main characters Stanley Kowalski and Blanche Dubois. The critical lens of Marxism can be applied to the play due to the tensions between the rich and the poor, the downfall of the old south, and different views/changes in the southern economic system.
Blanche Dubois is known as a southern belle and grew up in a rich high-class southern society with her sister Stella. Once Blanche decides to visit her sister Stella and her husband Stanley in Elysian Fields, New Orleans she is introduced as an outsider. "Her appearance is incongruous with this setting. She is daintily dressed in a white suit... with necklaces and earrings of pearl" (Williams 15). Blanche's portrays her self as being a southern bell through her appearance. She dresses of wealth trying to show her social class. When Blanche first visits Elysian Fields we see the differences between social classes collide. Blanche portrays her self as high-class with wealth and is entering a difference social environment that can be seen as lower class. This causes a tension between herself and other characters in the play. This tension between classes can further seen when Blanche and Stella first meet in Elysian Fields. "Why, that you had to live in these conditions" (Williams 20). When Blanche first talks with Stella about her living conditions i...
... middle of paper ...
... that she is cheating him out of money. His desire to move up in social class and not be oppressed by the higher class leads him to this. The oppression of the lower working class like Stanley by the higher class like Blanche is a key factor in Marxism and bases the foundation of the Marxist society.
Furthermore Tennessee William's play A Streetcar Named Desire portrays the theories of a Marxist society through the colliding personalities between Stanley Kowalski and Blanche Dubois. Marxist is based on the theories of separation of the lower and upper class through power and ruling. Which is shown through the different personality traits between the protagonists of the play.
Works Cited
"Quotes About Social Class." (17 Quotes). N.p., n.d. Web. 05 May 2014.
Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire: A Play. New York: New Directions, 1947. Print.
In this paper it will be shown that the functionalists are correct. Functionalists argue that Blanche's self-concept, which she believes is a traditional upper class woman, eventually leads to her mental and emotional breakdown. Feminists argue Blanche is sent off to a mental hospital to hush up Stanley's crime of rape, not because of any illness. Although there is some value to the feminist interpretation, it contains several weaknesses. The following review of some aspects of the plot will reveal some of those weaknesses.
In Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire, main character Blanche Dubois to begin with seems to be a nearly perfect model of a classy woman whose social interaction, life and behavior are based upon her sophistication. The play revolves around her, therefore the main theme of drama concerns her directly. In Blanche is seen the misfortune of a person caught between two worlds-the world of the past and the world of the present-unwilling to let go of the past and unable, because of her character, to come to any sort of terms with the present.
As Stanley continues torturing Blanche and draws Stella and Mitch away from her, Blanche’s sanity slowly dwindles. Even though she lied throughout the play, her dishonesty becomes more noticeable and irrational due to Stanley's torment about her horrible past. After dealing with the deaths of her whole family, she loses Belle Reve, the estate on which her and her sister grew up. This is too much for Blanche to handle causing her moral vision to be blurred by “her desperate need to be with someone, with ancestors for models who indulged in “epic fornications” with impunity, [Blanche] moves through the world filling the void in her life with lust” (Kataria 2). She also loses a young husband who killed himself after she found out he was gay when she caught him with another man. After that traumatic experience she needed “a cosy nook to squirm herself into because ...
Blanche’s developmental history or character development points to her diagnosis. Blanche comes to New Orleans to stay with her sister Stella after being fired from her job as a schoolteacher due to having an inappropriate affair with a teenage student. When she arrives to see her sister, she is consumed with insecurities regarding her appearance and is condescending to her sister’s humble lifestyle. Stella’s husband Stanley immediately has distrust and dislike for Blanche and treats her
However, there are also many instances where Stanley, a common working-class man, reveals his desire to be powerful and manly in his relationship with Stella, a woman who is of high class. Stanley is a man from a poor background and is married to a woman with a rich family history. Logically, Stanley may feel intimidated by Stella’s upbringing and feels that it is crucial to oppress her; it is hinted many times throughout the play as Stanley clearly demonstrates he is the one that holds the power by the way he treats Stella. Right from the start of the play, with Stanley’s introduction, he comes “around the corner… [with] a red-stained package from a butcher’s” (4), much like how an animal would bring its kill back home. With this, it is an analogy to a leader, Stanley, of a pack that brings back the food for the others to eat. The reliance of Stanley to bring back home the food broadcasts his will as the almighty alpha male that holds more importance than Stella. Furthermore, Stanley “heaves the meat at her (Stella),” (4) treating her as like a servant and also making a sexual innuendo. This action is one of disrespect and lets Stella know that she is under Stanley. This is an example of Stanley seeing Stella as a slave, a sexual object, under his control. Control is a large factor to Stanley as a husband and as a person. This is apparent when Stella explains that “Stanley doesn’t
From the first moment the Williams introduces Blanche, it is evident that she believes herself to be of a higher class, and this is shown with how uncomfortable she is around those of a lower class. When Blanche is shown an act of kindness from Eunice, “Why don’t you set down?” her response to this person of a lower class than herself is dismissive, “…I’d like to be left alone.” She instantly expects too much from a place called ‘Elysian Fields’. Blanche feels uneasy about being around those that are of a lower class, especially of those who she does not know, which is clear when she is reunited with her sister. She immediately becomes ostentatious in her actions, and begins to speak with “feverish vivacity”, “Stella, Oh Stella, Stella! Stella for Star!” Perhaps she is relieved to be with her sister once again, or it could be that she feels she now has someone to be dominant over, since she has little control over her own life. Blanche comes across as being very motherly towards Stella, “You messy child” in spite of the fact that Stella is soon to beco...
The Marxist theory “is the belief that the struggle between social classes is a major force in history and that there should eventually be a society in which there are no classes” – Karl Marx In the book “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood there are significant examples of the Marxist theory because of the way social classes are represented, how religion is manipulated in the society, and what values the text reinforces in the reader.
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.
Here is where I begin to see the first parallels with Marxist Criticism. In a Marxist society or in Marxist Criticism, class differences are a major part of the social system. In analyzing a Marxist society it is necessary to look at who is oppressing and who is being oppressed; in the case of Brave New World the alphas and betas are the oppressors because they are conditioned from birth to be leaders and thinkers.
Superficial is the first impression that Blanche gives when she enters the play. Consumed by appearance and face value, she is unable to see that Stella’s new lifestyle is not as horrid as she imagines. In comparison to Belle Reve, it is true that these New Orleans slums may not meet Dubois standards, but Blanche is unable to see beyond the way things appear in order to realize that Stella’s world does not revolve around material items. This flaw is intertwined with her vanity and her need keep up appearances. On the surface, Blanche appears to be snobbish and conceited.
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.
This derives from the fact that people of a different race getting categorized as lesser, which Stanley does not want, especially from Blanche. This quote also shows how Blanche continues to bring her prejudice and judgment with her from Belle Reve into a completely different environment in which she is of the majority from a socioeconomic perspective. Blanche has been placed out of her element and the new environment can be strenuous for people who are not acquainted with the role race and class plays in a different demographic. When Blanche is being escorted with the doctor out of the Kowalski residence she says, “[w]hoever you are- I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” (Williams 178). This quote is not directed at anyone in the Kowalski residence, or anyone directly around Blanche. Instead this quote accurately depicts how Blanche is in this setting of an easy and relaxed intermingling of races and shows her lack of connection to the people of New Orleans and those who inhabit the city. This quote sums up how out of place Blanche is in a lower class filled with racial figures that someone of her socioeconomic perspective would usually segregate and thus exposes her racism and biased view of the past. It is evident that Blanche’s ‘Southern Belle’ perspective is a extremely racially and culturally biased opinion in the poorer districts of New Orleans. Blanche depicts all of the higher class citizens in New Orleans and shows how they would look down upon and disassociate themselves with other races because they view them as
Through Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, if looked at carefully, one can see many aspects of Marxist thought in the story. When analysing Hamlet through a Marxist critical lens, you need to pay close attention to the interactions between characters in different classes. (add sentence)
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.
A Streetcar Named Desire is an intricate web of complex themes and conflicted characters. Set in the pivotal years immediately following World War II, Tennessee Williams infuses Blanche and Stanley with the symbols of opposing class and differing attitudes towards sex and love, then steps back as the power struggle between them ensues. Yet there are no clear cut lines of good vs. evil, no character is neither completely good nor bad, because the main characters, (especially Blanche), are so torn by conflicting and contradictory desires and needs. As such, the play has no clear victor, everyone loses something, and this fact is what gives the play its tragic cast. In a larger sense, Blanche and Stanley, individual characters as well as symbols for opposing classes, historical periods, and ways of life, struggle and find a new balance of power, not because of ideological rights and wrongs, but as a matter of historical inevitability. Interestingly, Williams finalizes the resolution of this struggle on the most base level possible. In Scene Ten, Stanley subdues Blanche, and all that she stands for, in the same way men have been subduing women for centuries. Yet, though shocking, this is not out of keeping with the themes of the play for, in all matters of power, force is its ultimate manifestation. And Blanche is not completely unwilling, she has her own desires that draw her to Stanley, like a moth to the light, a light she avoids, even hates, yet yearns for.