Chase Beale Hour 1 Streetcar Named Desire Secondly, Williams reveals how Blanche lies over and over again to try to make her sounds like a more dignified person. In the beginning of the play she tries to represent herself as a good sister that has just fallen on hard times. She arrives and rushes to the closet looking for alcohol. She finds what she's looking for and remarks “Now don’t get worried, your sister hasn’t turned into a drunkard, she's just all shaken up and hot and tired and dirty” (William 19). In reality she’s a person that can not live without her alcohol. She doesn't even want, as stella offered her, a coke to mix with hard alcohol. She is an experienced drinker so she does not need a “chaser” to protect her throat from the strong liquor. Next, Blanch …show more content…
This hotel is thought to be a popular spot to have extra curricular activities. In other words she was there to be a prostitute. Stanley calls her out and states “This is after the home-place had slipped through her lily white fingers! She moved to the Flamingo!” (Williams 99). Stanley divulged that Blanche was living at the Flamingo Hotel and Blanche immediately comes back and rejects to this and uttered “It’s Barnum and Bailey world, Just as phony as it can be- But it would not be make-believe if you believed in me!” (William 99). She is denying everything even though Stanley has cold hard evidence. Blanche is digging herself a deeper and deeper grave that will soon catch up to her. Stanley now keeps on her case and continues with all the lies he knows about. Subsequently, Stanley rant rages on as Blanche just keeps trying to deceive everyone. Stanley goes on with his second point stating “Which brings us to lie number two, She’s not going back to teach school! In fact I am willing to bet you that she never had no idea of returning to Laurel” (William 100). Stanley is correctly prosecuting Blanche of getting kicked out of highschool for “getting mixed up
Blanche’s immoral and illogical decisions all stem from her husband's suicide. When a tragedy happens in someone’s life, it shows the person’s true colors. Blanche’s true self was an alcoholic and sex addict, which is displayed when “She rushes about frantically, hiding the bottle in a closet, crouching at the mirror and dabbing her face with cologne and powder” (Williams 122). Although Blanche is an alcoholic, she tries to hide it from others. She is aware of her true self and tries to hide it within illusions. Blanche pretends to be proper and young with her fancy clothes and makeup but is only masking her true, broken self.
Blanche is heard singing ‘It’s a Barnum and Bailey world, Just a phony as it can be—’. ‘Barnum’, is an exophoric reference to the Barnum effect, from entertainer P. T. Barnum—a notorious hoaxer, that meant to accept vague information. In addition, by using the word ‘phony’ the concept of half-truth, hoaxes and deceit, foreshadowing to her fate to people’s belief in half-truths, is further emphasised by Williams. Therefore, Blanche’s jovial singing is dramatic irony and temporal prolepsis to her fate as it reflects Stanley’s actions and the events in scene IX with Mitch. William’s conveys that this is the most likely cause of misunderstanding through Stanley’s use of colloquial lexis like the monosyllabic ‘Boy, oh, boy’ and by purposely misspelling practically when he says confidently that ‘Yep it was practickly a town ordinance’ and uses a declarative statement to convey his certainty on something that in truth is far from certain. By doing this, Williams emphasises the uneducated nature of Stanley to the audience, and implies that his claim may not actually be that true. The plosive repetition of, ‘Boy’, in, ‘Boy, oh, Boy!’, is used to emphasise his enthusiasm for the downfall of Blanche and conveys the immaturity of Stanley to the audience. Furthermore, Stanley’s malice towards Blanche is highlighted by his use of the semantic field of fishing when he exclaims that he’d ‘like to have seen her trying to squirm out of that one! But they had her on the hook good’ with the zoomorphic use of ‘squirm’ to characterise Blanche as the
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.
During early times men were regarded as superior to women. In Tennessee William’s play, “A Streetcar Named Desire”, Stanley Kowalski, the work’s imposing antagonist, thrives on power. He embodies the traits found in a world of old fashioned ideals where men were meant to be dominant figures. This is evident in Stanley’s relationship with Stella, his behavior towards Blanche, and his attitude towards women in general. He enjoys judging women and playing with their feelings as well.
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
After two world wars, the balance of power between the genders in America had completely shifted. Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire is a harsh, yet powerful play that exposes the reality of the gender struggle. Williams illustrates society’s changing attitudes towards masculinity and femininity through his eloquent use of dramatic devices such as characterization, dialogue, setting, symbolism, and foreshadowing.
After Blanche says she does not touch alcohol often, Stanley replies: “Some people rarely touch it, but it touches them often,” Williams incorporates this quote to reveal to the audience immediately that Stanley sees through Blanche’s façade, which is evident because Stanley is referring to Blanche in his reply.
Blanche 's life is full of illusions, which take the forms of lies, which then get told to Stella, who in turn creates her own fantasies. One fantasy created by this conflict is Stella 's fantasy that Blanche is just having a hard time because she lost Belle Reve, and that she just need time to recover. In reality, there are many reasons why Blanche is going through a rough patch in life, including getting fired from work for having an affair with a minor, getting kicked out of Laurel, Mississippi, and fighting alcoholism. The illusions that Blanche is then sharing with Stella become lies in her and Stanley 's eyes which later encourages Stanley to find out the truth. Stella did not know from the beginning that Blanche was lying, but once she found out, she still believed that Blanche just needed some time. This fantasy that Stella possessed is what differentiated her from Stanley, and is the reason why Blanche was allowed to live with them for so long. Unlike Blanche, Stella still had a hold on reality, and what was right or wrong. This hold on reality is very important when it comes to the final scene of the
The past will always have an effect on the present. This is especially shown within literature where previous events will change a character’s actions, attitudes, and values. In A Streetcar Named Desire, every character has a past that dictates their present and future. The character Blanche is primarily shown to further prove this point. Her past entire affects her present and future whether it be for the positive or negative.
Habitual drinking isn’t ideal for a woman’s reputation in the 1940’s, so the habit is often hidden or disguised. In scene 5, Stella hands Blanche a Coke and tells her not to talk morbidly. Blanche asks for a shot of alcohol in the Coke, and Stella pours some whiskey into a glass, insisting that she likes waiting on her sister. “ Well honey, a shot never does any harm! Let me! You mustn’t n’ wait on me!” ( 92) Blanche hysterically promises to leave before Stanley kicks her out. Stella tries to calm her down as she pours the Coke, but accidentally spills some on Blanche’s “pretty white” skirt. Blanche shows uncomfortable strong emotion from her sister and then screams out as her drink spills. Stella sees for the first time that her sister is perhaps not quite mentally stable as her emotions ride for out of sync with the content of the exchange. Blanche drinks to escape the present and to blur the harsh edges of reality. When she thinks Stella has stained her skirt, she overreacts as though Stella has ruined her whole dream of herself, and she is overly relieved when the stain blots away. If the stain had stayed, Blanche would have seen herself as tarnished forever. The Coke spilling and foaming out of the bottle can be seen as a metaphor for Blanche- it stains her emotions spilling over, how herself is out of control,
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 ...
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...
To begin, Blanche fails to keep her sanity because of all the lies she has told to others about her past. Blanche told small lies throughout the play but she also told big lies that causes no one to believe her even when she is telling the truth. A small lie that she tells is when she first meets Mitch and says, “she doesn’t drink and that Stella is older than her” ( Williams scene 3). Even though she does drink and is actually older than Stella. However, as the play progresses people begin to question whether everything
Stanley’s treatment of Blanche leaves her alone once again, with what little dreams of returning to her previous status destroyed like the paper lampshade that once gave her the shield from the real her she desperately craved. Stella, the one person Blanche believed she could rely on, sides against her husband after Blanche’s ordeal, leading Blanche to be taken away, relying on the “kindness of strangers”. This final image that Williams leaves us with fully demonstrates that Blanche has been cruelly and finally forced away from her “chosen image of what and who” she is, leaving an empty woman, once full of hope for her future.
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.