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. Blanche’s appearance is always important to her throughout the play. The mise-en-scene in the film, specifically the costuming, …show more content…
In the play, Blanche has lots of moments where she agrees with everyone, to the point where she doubles back on herself. In the film, Leigh portrays Blanche as always cheery towards others. Too cheery. Her voice always high-pitched and light, and it seemed artificial. Her abundant and conflicting opinions made it hard to get an accurate reading on her straight away, and her airy voice made it even harder to distinguish her real thoughts because she molded herself to best fit whoever she was interacting with at that time. There is one scene where it seems as though you finally see the real Blanche. When Mitch visits Blanche after Stanley reveals her past. Denying every word from Mitch in the beginning of his accusations, she eventually gives in, telling her truth. When Leigh performed this scene, she appeared to be terrified by the idea of mitch ripping off the lantern, as that would revealed her true self to him. Coming around to the truth, however, her voice deepened almost past the point of recognition as she told the story of her “intimacies with strangers” (Williams, scene 9). Leigh’s use of a different voice when Blanche revealed her past established a new side of Blanche the audience hasn’t seen before, and is assumed to be the “real” her. Unfortunately, as Blanche is a compulsive liar, the audience is never certain which face of Blanche is authentic, if
However Blanche is unable to get attention or protection throughout the story be cause of all the lies she's told. She also ends up hurting the people who are closest to her when she tries to hide who she really is. For example when she says " I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes magic!
Identity in Contemporary American Drama – Between Reality and Illusion Tennessee Williams was one of the most important playwrights in the American literature. He is famous for works such as “The Glass Menagerie” (1944), “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1947) or “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)”. As John S. Bak claims: “Streetcar remains the most intriguing and the most frequently analyzed of Williams’ plays.” In the lines that follow I am going to analyze how the identity of Blanche DuBois, the female character of his play, “A Streetcar Named Desire”, is shaped. Firstly, we learn from an interview he gave, that the character of Blanche has been inspired from a member of his family.
Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire is a overly dramatic play that concludes in a remarkable manner. The play takes off by introducing Stanley and Stella, a married couple whom live in New Orleans. They have a two-sided relationship, very loving but abusive. Then suddenly Blanche shows up, Stella’s sister, and informs Stella that their home in Belle Reve was lost. A few days later, Blanche meets and becomes attracted to Mitch, a friend of Stanley. Blanche sees Stanley as an abusive husband and contrasts him to Mitch. Blanche immediately begins to develop deep emotions for Mitch because he is very romantic and a gentleman. Blanche begins to talk to Stella because she does not want her sister to be abused.
The first time this ignorance manifested itself is during the stage directions introducing Blanche. Even though she was coming to a slum-like area, Blanche was dressed for “a summer tea or cocktail party in the garden district” (15). Thus, Blanche still acts as if she’s rich, too rooted in her past life to see the current one. Furthermore, her ignorance of the present also presents itself in numerous
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.
This gradual fall and loss of her sense of reality is truly tragic. Blanche is a person largely driven by the part of her that wants to be liked and be accepted. She cares greatly about how she is viewed and how she looks which is seen throughout the play. Even at the end when she’s living almost completely in the imaginations of her mind she asks Stella and Eunice how she looks before being taken away to an insane asylum. Tennessee Williams, the author of the play, uses all the conflict between Blanche and others, specifically Stanley, to show that fantasy is unable to overcome reality. Stanley and Blanche are both the epitomes of fantasy and reality. Stanley is a man focused on sexual drive, work, and fighting. He is exhibited as animalistic and strongly driven by his desires which is shown when he says, “Be comfortable. That's my motto up where I come from.” Stanley loves and searches after reality which is why he is so set on breaking down the facade he sees in Blanche. Blanche on the other hand is running from her reality and her past. Her fantasy of being high class and chaste is the exact opposite of her reality which is why she wants a life like that so badly. She wants marriage and stability, two things she was jealous of Stella having after arriving in New Orleans. Her fantasy she was building in her new life is shattered when Stanley is able to learn of her past and bring reality crashing down on her. Williams
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.
Tennessee Williams explores in his play” A Streetcar Named Desire”, suggests the main protagonist, Blanche, who has ruins her reputation due to her adversity. She is kick out of Laurel. She have no choice, but to move to her sister’s house. This place can allow her to create a new identity and new life. However when Blanche is revealed , it cause her to choose to live in her own fantasy world , because she cannot face the harsh reality. The Play” A Streetcar Named Desire”, by Tennessee Williams illustrates that sensitive people may succumb to fantasy to survive when they faced adversity, ,which forsake their identity to find an acceptable existence.
When Blanche is stood up by Mitch and given a bus ticket to leave from Stanley, she begins to drink as she packs. Then, “a mood of hysterical exhilaration came into her and she has decked herself out in a somewhat soiled and crumpled white satin evening gown and a pair of scuffed silver slippers with brilliants set in their heels. Now she is placing the rhinestone tiara on her head,” (Williams 151). Blanche’s “soiled and crumpled white satin evening gown” and her “scuffed silver slippers” may look nice from far away, but as someone gets closer, the imperfections are revealed, just like Blanche with her looks and her lies. She places the tiara on her head to distract from the mess occurring elsewhere, similar to how Blanche lies to conceal her true, corrupt
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.
Firstly, the reader may initially feel Blanche is completely responsible or at least somewhat to blame, for what becomes of her. She is very deceitful and behaves in this way throughout the play, particularly to Mitch, saying, ‘Stella is my precious little sister’ and continuously attempting to deceive Stanley, saying she ‘received a telegram from an old admirer of mine’. These are just two examples of Blanches’ trickery and lying ways. In some ways though, the reader will sense that Blanche rather than knowingly being deceitful, actually begins to believe what she says is true, and that she lives in her own dream reality, telling people ‘what ought to be the truth’ probably due to the unforgiving nature of her true life. This will make the reader begin to pity Blanche and consider whether these lies and deceits are just what she uses to comfort and protect herself. Blanche has many romantic delusions which have been plaguing her mind since the death of her husband. Though his death was not entirely her fault, her flirtatious manner is a major contributor to her downfall. She came to New Orleans as she was fired from...
A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, is a very worldly play that contains issues from life; a guilty feeling of abandonment, the anger and frustration between two complete opposites, and the violation of a rape. It happens in New Orleans where there are many different races. Blanche DuBois, loses her ancestral home, Belle Reve, and her teaching position as a result of promiscuity. With expectations for the new life, she moves in with her pregnant sister Stella and her brutish husband, Stanley Kowalski. Throughout the play, we can distinguish many differences between Blanche and Stella. Although they come from the same noble and aristocratic family, their philosophies of life are distinct and lead them to different roads. Blanche is a highly vulnerable, as well as neurotic, woman living in a world of boozy self deception. She is intelligent, yet prefers magic over realism. She puts too much emphasis on her manners and appearance. She demands to be seen for what she wished to be, rather than what she really is.This is the reason for the paper lanterns and constant bathing - she is creating her world of illusion. A complite opposite of Blanch is Stella.Unlike her sister, she is a passive and gentle woman. She is five years younger than Blanche, about 25, and has been submissive to her for her entire life. After marrying Stanley, she is forced to join the lower class, endure her husband's bad temper, and be obedient to him. Blanche is not a compromising person who can adapt to changes. Moreover, I think she is afraid of alterations and denies facing the reality (ex. she is afraid of losing her properties, her youth and beauty, etc.). She feels very uncertain about the new world and tries to persist in her own way of behavior and thinking, since that is how she has been educated: to be a lady. Stella is the connecting figure to two different worlds- the supposed royalty world of Blanche DuBois and the more common world of Stanley Kowalski. Blanche and Stanley both attempt to influence her, and they succeed to a degree. Stella still has many of the qualities instilled in her at Belle Reve, yet she does not let that get in the way of her having some fun. As she is so entangled between two completely opposite worlds, she is stuck and eventually forced to side with one of the two.
Written in 1947, by playwright Tennessee Williams, the play A Streetcar Named Desire opens in the 1940s in the well-known city of New Orleans. Readers are presented with the young couple Stan and Stella Kowalski who live below another young couple, Eunice and Steve. While Stan and Stella manage to maintain a relationship, it is abusive. Stella reunites with her alcoholic sister Blanche, after learning that the family plantation had been lost due to bankruptcy. Blanche, a widow often finds herself in difficult and unforeseen circumstances. Blanche’s poor choices and vulnerability leads to an affair with Stan’s poker buddy Mitch. Coinciding with his abusive nature, Stanley rapes Blanche. No one believes her until the very end, causing her to get sent away to a mental institution. While the play and film were smashing, each had their similarities overall, in regards to setting, plot, and characters while differences concerned narrative technique.
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.
The play A Streetcar Named Desire written by Tennessee Williams is renowned for its controversial elements that cause many respected adults to question whether the play should be read by students. Some instances in the play that occur cross the line between raising awareness about and issue and corrupting the morals of the reader. Set in New Orleans in 1947, A Streetcar follows the story of Blanche as she is reunited with her sister, Stella, and meets her gruff, disagreeable, brother in law, Stanley. As Blanche is mentally and physically abused by Stanley, she also struggles with the burden of the death of her friends and family. Williams uses abuse, rape, patriarchy, homosexuality, and death to depict Blanche as the broken character he intended