A Streetcar Named Desire as Tragic Comedy
Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire is considered by many critics to be a “flawed” masterpiece. This is because William’s work utilizes and wonderfully blends both tragic and comic elements that serve to shroud the true nature of the hero and heroine, thereby not allowing the reader to judge them on solid actuality. Hence, Williams has been compared to writers such as Shakespeare who, in literature, have created a sense of ambiguity and uncertainty in finding a sole “view or aspect ” in their works. Because of the highly tragic elements encountered in Streetcar, many immediately label it a tragedy. Nevertheless, the immense comical circumstances encountered in the play contradict the sole role of tragedy and leave the reader pondering the true nature of the work, the question being whether it is a tragedy with accidental comic incidences or a comedy with weak melodramatic occurrences.
It has been said that the “double mask of tragicomedy reveals the polarity of the human condition”(Adler 47). The contrariety of forces in the work serves to enforce a sense of both reality and drama that are present in everyday human life. The comic elements in the play serve as a form of determined self-preservation just as the tragic elements add to the notion of self-destruction. This is the true nature of a tragicomedy. By juxtaposing two irreconcilable positions, ambiguity is produced in the judgment of the main characters, most notably Stanley Kowalski and Blanche Dubois (Riddell 83).
Ambivalence in the play is largely caused by the relationship between Stanley and Blanche. They concurrently produce both appalling and appealing tendencies. Both characters display elements o...
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...ilable forces come face to face. The two opposing forces are destined to become locked in a death grip and society will be the loser.
Works Cited
Adler, Thomas P. 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: WW Norton & Co., 1995.
Falk, Signi. Twentieth Century Interpretations of A Streetcar Named Desire. Ed. Jordan Miller. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1971.
Riddell, Joseph. Twentieth Century Interpretations of A Streetcar Named Desire. Ed. Jordan Miller. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1971.
Szeliski, John T. von. Twentieth Century Interpretations of A Streetcar Named Desire. Ed. Jordan Miller. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1971.
Williams, Tennessee. The Theatre of Tennessee Williams. New York: New Directions, 1971.
During the time period Tennessee Williams, author of the play A Streetcar Named Desire, lived in, men were typically portrayed as leaders of the household. Through Williams' usage of dialogue, specific descriptions of each characters, as well as sound, he illustrates to readers of today's society how differently a man and woman coexisted in the mid-1900s, compared to today. Through the eyes of a topical/historical theorist, who stresses the relationships between the story and the time period it takes place, the distinction between today's society and that of five decades past, can be observed with depth and precision.
Cystic fibrosis is one of the most common lethal mutations in humans. The autosomal recessive allele is carried by 1/20 Caucasians, 1/400 couples will have children with the disease, and ¼ children will be afflicted. If untreated, 95% of affected ch ildren will die before age five (Bell, 1996).
...gous to the gene, there is a twenty-five percent chance that the chid will be health, a twenty-five percent chance that the child will have the disease, and a fifty percent chance that the child will carry CF.
This couple has discussed their concerns involving the genetic possibility of their children having cystic fibrosis since a family member has this disorder.
gene. Millions of Americans carry the Cystic Fibrosis gene, but will never have any symptoms. They
While cystic fibrosis (CF) is not a new disease, there is still a lot to learn about it. In 1938 a pathologist, Dr Dorothy Andersen, provided the first clear description of cystic fibrosis. Before this time there had been reports of people that had the symptoms of someone with CF. During the seventeenth century children with the symptoms of CF were thought to be bewitched and their life expectancy was very short. Dr Dorothy Andersen gave this disease its name because cystic fibrosis refers to the scarring that is found on the pancreas. People with CF also have associated diseases like salt-loss syndrome, obstructive azoospermia, and gastrointestinal abnormalities. CF is inherited from one’s parents, making it a genetic disease. CF is caused by mutations in a certain gene that produces the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) protein. This gene was first discovered in 1989 on chromosome pair 7. Cystic fibrosis is a recessive disease meaning both parents have to be a carrier. Whenever two CF carriers have a child together, there’s a 1 in 4 chance that their child will inherit the CF mutation. Although CF produces coughing it cannot be transmitted any other way than hereditary.
Tennessee Williams gives insight into three ordinary lives in his play, “A Streetcar Named Desire” which is set in the mid-1930’s in New Orleans. The main characters in the play are Blanche, Stanley, and Stella. All three of these characters suffer from personalities that differentiate each of them to great extremes. Because of these dramatic contrarieties in attitudes, there are mounting conflicts between the characters throughout the play. The principal conflict lies between Blanche and Stanley, due to their conflicting ideals of happiness and the way things “ought to be”.
Cystic fibrosis, also known as CF, affects over 30,000 children and adults world-wide. CF is a disease in the lungs and digestive system and is still incurable today. It is a disease that causes thick, abnormal mucus in the lungs, nasal polyps, fatigue, and can also damage organs in a person’s body. According to www.cff.org/aboutcf, over 70% of CF patients are diagnosed at two years of age. Cystic fibrosis is one of the most life-threatening diseases in the United States and is very common amongst chronic diseases. Cystic fibrosis is most commonly diagnosed in young children and sometimes adults.
Williams, Tennessee. "A Streetcar Named Desire." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. 2337-2398.
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.
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.
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
In Tennessee Williams’ 1947 play, “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Stella and Stanley Kowalski live in the heart of poor, urban New Orleans in a one-story flat very different from the prestigious home Stella came from. This prestige is alive and well inside Stella’s lady-like sister, Blanche Du Bois. Over the course of Blanche’s life, she has experienced many tragedies that deeply affected her, such as the death of her gay husband, the downward spiral in her mental health that followed, and most recently the loss of her wealth and therefore social status. She constructs a proverbial lampshade to mask her pain and to control the last part of her world that she is able to, the image she projects into the world for herself and others to see. The brooding prince of William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” chooses a very similar way of coping with the hand life has dealt him. When his mother remarries his uncle only a month after his father’s passing, the ghost of Hamlet’s father visits the young prince demanding avengement. These events cause Hamlet to try to replace the old lampshade that helped him cope with reality by changing his own image and fooling himself and others into thinking he’s crazy. An examination of both plays reveals that the importance of subjective truths and the way in which Blanche and Hamlet use them to cope transcends the context of both plays.
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.