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The arts stir emotion in audiences. Whether it is hate or humor, compassion or confusion, passion or pity, an artist's goal is to construct a particular feeling in an individual. Tennessee Williams is no different. In A Streetcar Named Desire, the audience is confronted with a blend of many unique emotions, perhaps the strongest being sympathy. Blanch Dubois is presented as the sympathetic character in Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire as she battles mental anguish, depression, failure and disaster.
During scene one, the audience is introduced to Blanche as Stella's sister, who is going to stay with her for a while. Blanch tries her best to act normal and hide her emotion from her sister, but breaks down at the end of scene one explaining to Stella how their old home, the Belle Reve, was "lost." It is inferred that the home had to be sold to cover the massive funeral expenses due to the many deaths of members of the Dubois family. As Blanche whines to her sister, "All of those deaths! The parade to the graveyard! Father, mother! Margaret, that dreadful way!" (21). The audience sees this poor aging woman, who has lost so many close to her, and now her home where she grew up. How could anyone look at her, and not feel the pain and suffering that she has to deal with by herself? Williams wants the audience to see what this woman has been through and why she is acting the way she is. Blanche's first love was also taken from her. It seems that everyone she loves is dead except for her sister. Death plays a crucial role in Blanche's depression and other mental irregularities. While these circumstances are probably enough for the audience to feel sympathy for Blanche, Williams takes it a step further when we see Blanche's...
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...ehavior is after her and Stanley have an inappropriate encounter (possibly raped her). After that point the audience knew that after that point, Blanche could no longer stay at Stella and Stanley's apartment. Considering all of these circumstances, how can any rational being claim that anyone but Blanche is the sympathetic character?
In conclusion, the story of Blanch Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire is a very sad and pitiful one. Williams stirs the audience's emotions and basically begs them to show Blanch sympathy. I also believe that many people feel as Blanche did, alone, worthless, yet trying desperately to cover their emotion, which reaches out to the viewers in a more personal way. There could not be a more rattling ending than to see old pitiful Blanch dragged off to a nut house, leaving the audience in the same mood Blanche herself would have been.
When Blanche DuBois visits her sister, Stella in Elysian Fields for the first time, it becomes clear that the two sisters’ images each woman has been displaying is glossed over. The secrecy each sister maintains suggests tension developing overtime due to contrasting opinions about the proper way to live. The first instance of potential disconnect between characters is Blanche’s tendency towards alcoholism, evident as soon as she arrives in Stella’s home. Blanche notices a bottle of whiskey peeking out of a closet and helps herself to a glass before “tossing it down.” She then “carefully replaces the bottle and washes out the tumbler at the sink.” Soon, as Stella arrives to greet Blanche, Blanche puts on this act of innocence and pretends to find the alcohol for the first time in Stella’s presence: “I know you must have some liquor on the place! Where could it be, I wonder?
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.
In Williams’ Streetcar Named Desire the characters represent two opposing themes. These themes are of illusion and reality. The two characters that demonstrate these themes are Blanche, and Stanley. Blanche represents the theme of Illusion, with her lies, and excuses. Stanley demonstrates the theme of reality with his straightforward vulgar ness. Tennessee Williams uses these characters effectively to demonstrate these themes, while also using music and background characters to reinforce one another.
A Streetcar Named Desire, written by Tennessee Williams, fallows the story of Blanche, a troubled woman who must move on with her sister, Stella, and Stella’s husband, Stanley after losing the family home. Be that as it may, Blanche isn’t as innocent as she appears. In fact, throughout the whole of the play, one can never be sure if they are seeing the genuine Blanche, or just a face of that pleases the characters she is interacting with. In the 1951 movie adaptation of the play, under the direction of Elia Kazan, the costume design, as well as Vivien Leigh’s acting, highlight the many conflicting sides of Blanche DuBois.
Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire revolves around a character named Blanche and her inability to control her delusions and attitude. According to Griffies, “Williams once told an interviewer: ‘My work is emotionally autobiographical. It has no relationship to the actual events of my life, but it reflects the emotional currents of my life’” (). Williams’s emotional state can be compared to Blanche’s, who is somewhat a victim of her condition, but the true villain overlooked in plain sight are the male abusers in her life. These abusers only served to form and encourage her emotional instability and led to her woeful stride to isolation. During his childhood, his parents had a victimizing relationship much like that
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.
The first reason is lying that cause Blanche to go insane. Blanche is like the boy who cried wolf, she kept lying and lying. Blanche’s little sister Stella is always by her side an always gets protected by Blanche. But this time a quote I found was Stella saying “I couldn’t believe
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
Now let’s talk about, tone of this screenplay i.e. what’s the zest of the feelings in this screenplay. According to me, what I felt throughout this play is “Sympathy”. I felt sympathetic towards Blanche. All she wants in her life is love and care and she mentions it in one of her dialogues she says, “I want to be near you, got to be with somebody, I can’t be alone! Because—as you must have noticed—I’m – not very well… [Her voice drops and her look is frightened.]” (Williams, pg.92). Blanche’s rape in the last scene is the most driving point of the play, that particular scene convinces the sympathetic approach of the play. When in the last scene, Blanche is talking to Stella, she seems totally trapped in her delusional self
The play A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is an intriguing play about a clash between two class groups. Blanche Dubois portrays herself as a high economic citizen where her sister and her husband are contrasted as lower class. Class is significant throughout the play because it provokes negative relationships and negative feelings amongst the main characters.
Sambrook, Hana., and Tennessee Williams. A Streetcar Named Desire. 3rd ed. London: York P, 2000. Print.
Our lives are consumed by the past. The past of what we once did, what we once accomplished, and what we once could call our own. As we look back on these past memories we seldom realize the impact these events have on our present lives. The loss of a past love mars are future relationships, the loss of our family influences the choices we make today, and the loss of our dignity can confuse the life we live in the present. These losses or deaths require healing from which you need to recover. The effects of not healing can cause devastation as apparent in the play A Streetcar Named Desire. The theme of A Streetcar Named Desire is death. We encounter this idea first with the death of Blanche and Stella's relationship as sisters. Blanche and Stella had a life together once in Bel Reve and when Stella decided to move on in her life and leave, Blanche never could forgive her. This apparent in the scene when Blanche first arrives in New Orleans and meets Stella at the bowling alley. Stella and Blanche sit down for a drink and we immediately see Blanche's animosity towards Stella. Blanche blames Stella for abandoning her at Bel Reve, leaving Blanche to handle the division of the estate after their parents die. As result of Stella's lack of support, we see Blanche become dependent on alcohol and lose her mental state. Blanche comes to be a a terrible reck through out the play as we learn of the details of her life at Bel Reve. Her loss of the entire estate and her struggle to get through an affair with a seventeen year old student. This baggage that Blanche carries on her shoulders nips at Stella through out eventually causing the demise of her relationship. As Blanche's visit goes on with Stella, the nips become too great and with the help of Stanley, Stella has Blanche committed to a mental hospital, thus symbolizing the death of the realtionship they once had. The next death we encounter in the film is the death of Stella and Stanley's marriage. Our first view of Stanley is of an eccentric man, but decent husband who cares deeply for his wife. However, as as Blanche's visit wears on, we come to see the true Stanley, violent and abusive.
Significant events will have drastically different effects on each of us. When faced with challenges, some individuals are inclined enough to adapt in order to overcome these obstacles, whereas others will find themselves unable to do so, and ultimately stumble along the road leading to their destiny. Tennessee Williams explores a female protagonist’s reaction to the cataclysmic events that befall her throughout the modern drama, A Streetcar Named Desire. Blanche Dubois suffered from a lack of financial security, and a tarnished reputation that continued to befall her. Nonetheless, her resourcefulness never faltered. Blanche’s life is impacted by several significant events which ultimately alters the course of her destiny. Through Blanche, Tennessee Williams develops the idea that we are all faced with challenges that impact our lives, but in the end, it’s how we deal with those circumstances that truly determine our destiny.
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.
Blanche Dubois is a dynamic character that at first, is very difficult to figure out. She hides behind confusing stories and lies to protect herself from her traumatic past. In the begin of the play William’s leaves multiple clues to Blanche’s lying nature. She tells a strange tale of Bella Rev and challenges Stanley every chance she gets. She has many odd actions however I believe that these action, particularly her interactions with the newspaper boy and her fear of the light have a deeper meaning. At the end of the play she is unable to deal with the mess she has made and as a result her subconscious takes over. She can no longer deal with the crumbling remains of her life and no one else can either. As a result, she is institutionalized at the end of the play. But her institutionalization and lies don’t make her a bad person. One needs to look at the motive behind her lies and actions to disover the truth.