Themes in A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire is a pessimistic work that is the “culmination of a view of life in which evil, or at least undiminished insensitivity, conquers throughout no matter what the protagonistic forces do”(Szeliski 69). In other words, sensitive individuals all meet a similar fate-crushed under the heels of those who lack sensitivity.
This play is about Blanche DuBois; therefore, the main themes of the drama concern her directly. In Blanche is seen the tragedy of an individual caught between two worlds-the past world of the Southern gentlewoman and the present world of crudeness and decay-unwilling to let go of the past and unable, because of her character, to come to any sort of terms with the present (Falk 94). The final result is her destruction. This process began long before her clash with Stanley Kowalski. It started with the death of her young husband, a weak and perverted boy who committed suicide when she taunted him with her disgust at the discovery of his perversion. In retrospect, she knows that he was the only man she had ever loved, and from this early catastrophe evolved her promiscuity. She is lonely and frightened, and she attempts to fight this condition with sex. Desire fills the emptiness when there is no love and desire blocks the inexorable movement of death, which has already wasted and decayed Blanche's ancestral home Belle Reve.
For Blanche, Belle Reve was the remaining symbol of a life and tradition that she knows in her heart have vanished, yet to which she clings with a desperate tenacity. In doing so, she is “both an individual and a representative of her society, an emblem of a lost tradition” (Krutch 39). She is dated. Her speech, manners and habi...
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Adler, Thomas. A Streetcar Named Desire: The Moth and the Lantern. New York: Twayne, 1990.
Baym, Nina et al, eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 1995.
Falk, Signi. Twentieth Century Interpretations of A Streetcar Named Desire. “The Southern Gentlewoman”. Ed. Jordan Y. Miller. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1971.
Krutch, Joseph Wood. Twentieth Century Interpretations of A Streetcar Named Desire. “Review of Streetcar Named Desire”. Ed. Jordan Y. Miller. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1971.
Szeliski, John T. von. Twentieth Century Interpretations of A Streetcar Named Desire. “Tennessee Williams and the Tragedy of Sensitivity”. Ed. Jordan Y. Miller. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1971.
Williams, Tennessee. The Theater of Tennessee Williams. “A Streetcar Named Desire”. New York: Laughlin, 1971.
... reconsider the position when we have cases of patients who developed Aids and the treatment is so severe that their lives become unbearable. Those patients should not be forced to take treatments that will end their lives in the worst way. Death is seen sooner or later, it should be respected if the patient prefers death as opposed to suffering. Suffering without any mean to stop it, is such cruel act humans can imposed on one another. God sent us to learn and live the life he showed us, but also he demonstrates compassion and forgiveness during these times.
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.
Or, as Mary Ann Corrigan later puts it [as does Judith J. Thompson, 38], the Blanche-Stanley struggle is purely an external dramatization of what is going on inside Blanche’s head: “the external events of the play, while actually occurring, serve as a metaphor for Blanche’s internal conflict” [Corrigan, 392]. Critics who share Sharp’s and Corrigan’s views feel that Streetcar is essentially a psychological drama about Blanche’s internal struggle with herself.”
In Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, its form of a Southern Gothic enables the playwright to base the play on sexual identity and judgement and the female characters all experience their struggle to liberate from their current position. For example, Blanche is notably known for her situation – The ‘polka dot’ which recurs throughout the play as a testimony to Blanche’s past. The playwright presents these situations using the play’s structure of a recurring cycle of a daily life of the characters. Unlike Alfieri in A View from the Bridge, A Streetcar Named Desire has no narrator and mostly focuses on the characters to establish Williams’ point of view. Perhaps, t...
Human conflict is ever-present in sex and desire. But, not until the streetcar named Desire was first shown in 1947 had the corporeal act of sex been so openly depicted on stage as a basis of dominance and power. The streetcar in the New Orleans Street, Elysian Fields, is an urban harsh world, where the laws of nature are the enduring rules of engagement. As the wild sex and violence are intimately connected, Intercourse is a product of aggressive dominance, competition and submission to a certain extent than romance. Although Williams repeatedly claimed that his piece cautioned against the world where brutes were permitted to reign, the play 's end, shows the sexually imposing dominance placed upon Blanche by Stanley, whom demolished her illusions
In Stephen Chapman’s essay, “The Prisoner’s Dilemma”, he questions whether the Western world’s idea of punishment for criminals is as humane as its citizens would like to believe or would Westerners be better off adopting the Eastern Islamic laws for crime and punishment. The author believes that the current prison systems in the Western world are not working for many reasons and introduces the idea of following the Koranic laws. Chapman’s “The Prisoner’s Dilemma” is persuasive because of his supporting evidence on the negative inhumane impact from the Western form of criminal punishment and his strong influential testament to the actions used by Eastern Islamic societies for crimes committed.
Williams, Tennessee. "A Streetcar Named Desire." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. 2337-2398.
Hagopian, K. (n.d.). Film Notes -A Streetcar Named Desire. Film Notes -A Streetcar Named Desire. Retrieved April 26, 2014, from http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/filmnotes/fns04n5.html
The characters in “A Streetcar Named Desire”, most notably Blanche, demonstrates the quality of “being misplaced” and “being torn away from out chosen image of what and who we are” throughout the entirety of the play.
Written in 1947, A Streetcar Named Desire has always been considered one of Tennessee William’s most successful plays. One way for this can be found is the way Williams makes major use of symbols and colours as a dramatic technique.
What is euthanasia? The word euthanasia comes from Greek words. “eu” means good and “thanatos” means death. When these two words are put together, it means “good death”. However, in the dictionary, the meaning of euthanasia is “the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of a hopelessly sick or injured individual in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy”. Although this definition is meant to indicate euthanasia, it may give people a negative idea about euthanasia. Most people who choose to have euthanasia are patients with incurable or painful diseases such as cancer or Hepatitis B. These people go through a lot of pain every day; so don’t they have the right to choose death over going through a life of both physical and mental suffering? Euthanasia gives people with diseases like such, to have a good death without going through the suffering and pain. Yet, euthanasia is only legal in four countries and 3 out of 50 of the states in America. Many
At some point, everyone has financial problems or times when they need cash quickly to cover an emergency home repair or to fix their vehicle when it breaks down. However, for many people, it can be difficult to get a loan because they have less than perfect credit. Fortunately, if you have someone willing to sign a loan form for you, you may be able to be approved for a guarantor loan.
Students may not sit down or have excessive conversations during class. unless instructed to do so by their instructor.
Trust is a very delicate emotion. You can have it one moment and then loose it forever in the next. Nowhere in the human experience is this more evident than in the relationship between the professional salesperson and his/her customer. Many salespeople go to great lengths to build a strong and lasting relationship with their customers. Others lie, cheat, and steal their way to the top only to inevitably fall off of the high pedestal they have placed themselves upon, making it just that much harder for the next sales professional to do his/her job.
Euthanasia, otherwise known as mercy killing or good death, is used to help end the suffering of a patient in an irreversible state of health, like severe cases of Lou Gehrig’s disease or severe burn victims. Many believe that it is immoral to go against natural survival instincts, while others wish to legalize it to help end the pain of those suffering. The main argument over euthanasia is whether or not it should even be allowed to exist within the medical and legal worlds. Euthanasia has caused many controversies and lawsuits that will continue until euthanasia is fully denied or accepted by society.