Social upheaval in many senses was explicit through the beginning of the twentieth century; two world wars had - for a short time - shifted the balance of power between men and women. Women were increasingly employed to fill positions which had previously been considered masculine. This was not to last however, and by the fifties men had reassumed their more dominant role in society. People were finding new voices at this time by taking pre-existing forms and pushing the boundaries to re-voice established literary forms. Tennessee Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire around the time this reversal was occurring in American society. Williams was a homosexual from the deep south of America, and his play is about physical, emotional and sexual conflict. We also see a discourse about the qualities of an Old South and a New America. It is an astute depiction of the continual metamorphosis gender roles were encountering; and in the play Williams highlights this gender struggle to represent the continual fight for supremacy on the one hand - and equality on the other - in the home between men and women and in the country between the Old south and the New America. Williams depicts "otherness" describing how people are marginalized and objected from society, for example Mitch and Blanche, he is also interested in femininity. Williams take on femininity is interesting as his female characters are central figures that are focused on as primary desiring subjects.
Stanley, the protagonist in A Streetcar Named Desire, is a violent and brutal representation of the male within American society during this period; he demonstrates absolute control of his household, including his wife. He is referred to as "bestial" and is animali...
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...senting these truths Williams poses a question to society, as to whether or not these representations are accurate.
Bibliography
Primary Text from which all of the above quotes are taken:
William, T. A Streetcar Named Desire; The Norton Anthology of American Literature Volume E, W. W. Norton and Company, Inc 2003.
Secondary Texts
Kolin, Philip.C. Confronting Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire Essays in Critical Pluralism; Westpoint, Conn. And London: Greenwood., P 1993
Roudane, M.C. Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Wiliams; Cambridge Univ. Press 1997.
Savran, D. Communists, Cowboys and Queers: The politics of Masculinity in the work of Arthur miller and Tennessee Williams. Minneapolis, Minn. And London: Univ of Minnesota Press 1992
Schlueter, J. Feminist rereadings of Modern American Drama; London Associated University Press 1989.
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.
Williams, Tennessee. Anthology of American Literature: From Realism to the Present. Ed. McMichael, George et al. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2000.
Williams, Tennessee. “A Streetcar Named Desire”. The Theater of Tennessee Williams. Vol. I. New York: New Directions, 1971.
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.
Within Tennessee Williams's story about love and abuse within marriage and challenging familial ties, there lie three very different characters that all see the world in vastly different ways. These members of a family that operate completely outside of our generation’s norms, are constantly unsure of themselves and their station within the binary not only of their familial unit, but within the gender binary that is established for them to follow. Throughout the story of the strange family, each character goes through a different arch that changes them irrevocably whether it is able to be perceived or not by those around them. The only male, Stanley is initially the macho force in the home who controls everything without question. He has no consequences for his actions against his wife and is never held accountable for treating the people around him poorly; this lasts until Blanche arrives. Blanche is an outwardly demure, but spirited young woman who after experiencing untold misfortune breaks mentally and decides to no longer care what others may think of her. She lives her life lavishly and foolishly by having dalliances with younger or richer men who shower her with gifts and attention to get sex from her all too willing form. Her effect on Stanley is one of temptation and challenge; she continually tries to convince her sister that she is too good for the man and in turn fosters a resentment for her in him. Stella acts as the antithesis of Stanley and Blanche’s extreme personalities. She is innocence and purity where they are the darkness that threatens to overtake her life. Throughout, Stella is a pawn that they both try to use against the other to no real avail as she is determined to make the best choice for herself. In th...
Not judging someone on their outward appearance, Lying ultimately gets you nowhere, Abusing people is never good, Treating people how you would like to be treated, and Staying true to yourself are just some of the moral and ethical lessons that I gathered from A Streetcar Named Desire. Published in 1946, this play shed light on the middle and lower classes around the time of the Great Depression. Some of these lessons arise because the nation was ready to embrace the “old fashioned values” of the home and families after World War II took place.
Williams, Tennessee. "Tennessee Williams Interviews Himself." Where I Live: Selected Essays by Tennessee Williams. Ed. Christine Day and Bob Woods. New York: New Directions, 1978. 88-92.
Tennessee Williams was one of the greatest American dramatists of the 20th century. Most of his plays take us to the southern states and show a confused society. In his works he exposes the degeneration of human feelings and relationships. His heroes suffer from broken families and they do not find their place in the society. They tend to be lonely and afraid of much that surrounds them. Among the major themes of his plays are racism, sexism, homophobia and realistic settings filled with loneliness and pain.1 Tennessee Williams characters showed us extremes of human brutality and sexual behavior.2 One of his most popular dramas was written in 1947, and it is called A Streetcar Named Desire.
*(1)- Critic- Harkness, 24- source (http://www.cercles.com/n10/bak.pdf): CRITICISM ON A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, A Bibliographic Survey, 1947-2003, JOHN S. BAK, Université de Nancy II-C.T.U.
The ideology of male dominance has existed since the beginning of mankind. In the play A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, it is especially apparent that Stanley, who is a working class man, feels the need to assert and reassert this principle of power constantly. Williams makes clear, through the character of Stanley, that the yearning for others’ recognition of their power and capability is the motive behind men’s masculine inclinations.
Williams, Tennessee. “A Streetcar Named Desire.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. 11th ed. New York: Norton, 2013.1815-1881. Print.
"A Streetcar Named Desire," a play by Tennessee Williams, is a story not only about
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”.
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.
[More laughter and shouts of parting come from the men. Stanley throws the screen door of the kitchen open and comes in. He is of medium height, about five feet eight or nine, and strongly, compactly built. Animal joy in his being is implicit in all his movements and attitudes. Since earliest manhood the center of his life has been pleasure with women, the giving and taking of it, not with weak indulgence, dependency, but with the power and pride of a richly feathered male bird among hens. Branching out from this complete and satisfying center are all the auxiliary channels of his life, such as his heartiness with men, his appreciation of rough humor, his love of good drink and food and games, his car, his radio, everything that is his, that bears his emblem of the gaudy seed-bearer. He sizes women up at a glance, with sexual classifications, crude images flashing into his mind and determining the way he smiles at them.] Blanche is uncomfortable and draws involuntarily back from his stare. She is keenly aware of his dominant position and reacts as women of the day did. Through all of this he is the leader of his group and in full control of his household. Any opposition to his leadership is quickly put down by physical force. He beats his wife, fights his friends and eventually humiliates Blanche by raping her.