Downfall and Denial in Streetcar Named Desire and Glass Menagerie
Tennessee Williams allows the main characters in the plays, A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie, to live miserable lives, which they first try to deny and later try to change. The downfall and denial of the Southern gentlewoman is a common theme in both plays. The characters, Blanche DuBois from A Streetcar Named Desire and Amanda from The Glass Menagerie are prime examples. Blanche and Amanda have had, and continue to have, many struggles in their lives. The problem is that Williams never lets the two women work through these problems and move on. The two ladies are allowed to destroy themselves and Williams invites the audience to watch them in the process (Stine 474).
The downfall, denial, and need to change of the two women are all quite evident in these two plays. First the troubles of Blanche and Amanda need to be recognized. Blanche has apparently had practice hiding her drinking problem. When she arrives at Stella’s home, she sneaks a shot of whiskey (Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene1. Page 18. Lines 12-17). When she is later offered a drink, she acts as though she has no idea where the alcohol is kept (Williams, A.S.N.D. 1.19.12-15). Amanda cannot accept the fact that no gentlemen callers are coming for Laura, her daughter, thus making that reality more difficult for Laura to accept (Williams, The Glass Menagerie, 1.28.1-5). Neither Blanche nor Amanda allows herself to recognize her problems and work them out. They both deny the existence of these problems, thereby enabling their difficulties to become larger and even more complicated. When Stella offers Blanche a second drink, Blanche states, "One's m...
... middle of paper ...
...Blanche and Amanda. Tennessee Williams wrote very similar plays along common themes, plays that both disturbed and aroused sympathy for the characters as well as the real life counterparts that they represented.
Works Cited
Baym, Nina et al, eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1995.
Hassan, William. Tennessee Williams: Parallels in Frustation. Boston: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Krutch, Joseph Wood. Modernism in Modern Drama. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1953.
Stine, Daniel. Tennessee Williams: An Interpretation. Chicago: University Press, 1977.
Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. New York: Signet, 1947.
Williams, Tennessee. Anthology of American Literature: From Realism to the Present. Ed. McMichael, George et al. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2000.
Since the 1972 conception of Title IX of the Education Amendments, the number of women participating in intercollegiate athletics has increased five-fold, from fewer than 30,000, to more 150,000 in 2001. However, more than 400 men’s athletics teams have been dismantled since Title IX, the law forbidding sex discrimination at institutions receiving federal funds, became law. Some would say this is due, in part, to Title IX enforcement standards like proportionality. Proportionality requires that an institution’s athletic population must be of an equal ratio to its general student body. Among some of the 400-plus teams dismantled by Title IX are several former Colorado State University teams including wrestling, baseball, gymnastics, men’s swimming and diving, and men’s tennis. CSU student athletes no longer sport the opportunity of participating in these activities at the NCAA Division I level, and the days of the student body rooting for their ram teams are gone, possibly forever. Now the search is on to find a solution to the problems associated with Title IX if, indeed, a solution is ultimately necessary.
Trelease, Jim. "Book Banning Violates Children and Young Adult Freedoms." Book Banning. Ed. Ronnie D. Lankford. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007. At Issue. Rpt. from "Censorship and Children's Books." Trelease-on-Reading.com. 2006.Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
In A Streetcar named Desire, Tennessee Williams presented to us the character of Blanche Dubois. She was the haggard and fragile southern beauty whose happiness was cruelly destroyed. She always avoided reality, and lived in her own imagination. As the play goes on, Blanches “instability grows along with her misfortune.” Her life ended in tragedy when she was put into a mental institution. Her brother in law’s cruelty combined with her fragile personality, left Blanche mentally detached from reality. Stanley Kowalski showed no remorse for his brutal actions, destroyed Blanches life and committed her to an insane asylum.
...person, unlike A Rose for Emily, it is safe to say that The Narrator is in fact insane. With the old man dead The Narrator would have been able to live a happy life, or so he thought. Although her reason was never stated in the story, one can safely assume that Miss Emily was happy lying in the arms of her dead lover. Both Faulkner and Poe show us in their stories that even if there are different characters, points of views or reasons for killing a loved one, there are still similarities.
As per the State Housing Authority, the issue and trend of homelessness has changed particularly throughout the most recent three decades. Public homelessness first turned into an issue in the 1970's and now it is normal to see individuals congregating before sanctuaries and thinking about park seats. Soup kitchens are generally stuffed to limit. Safe houses have multiplied their ability since 1993 and they dismiss individuals consistently because of absence of cots (Kenyon 1991). During 1987, Congress passed the Stewart B. Mckinney Homeless Ass...
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.
In Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire" two of the main characters Stanley and Blanche persistently oppose each other, their differences eventually spiral into Stanley's rape of Stella.
...nd this is the result of the unity of synthesis of imagination and apperception. The unity of apperception which is found in all the knowledge is defined by Kant as affinity because it is the objective ground of knowledge. Furthermore, all things with affinity are associable and they would not be if it was not for imagination because imagination makes synthesis possible. It is only when I assign all perceptions to my apperception that I can be conscious of the knowledge of those perceptions. This understanding of the objects, also known as Faculty of Rules, relies on the sense of self and is thus, the source of the laws of nature.
The Trouble with Men: Masculinities in European and Hollywood Cinema - Phil Powrie, Ann Davies and Bruce Babington.
"Juno Spacecraft to Slingshot past Earth En Route to Jupiter." SwRI. Web. 01 Apr. 2014. .
In the play written by Tennessee Williams, "A Streetcar Named Desire", the use of his remarkable writing tactics and motifs are used to develop the main character Blanche throughout the play. As the play progresses, we gradually gain knowledge pertaining to Blanche and the type of individual she actually is in juxtapose to the facade she puts on. With clever usage of motifs such as lighting and flirtation, we can draw countless conclusions about Blanche throughout the play. Using the fore mentioned motifs we can contemplate that Blanche is developed into a deceiving, narcissistic and seductive being because of the use of motifs Williams amalgamated throughout the play.
Alessi, Michael De. "Permitting Limited Trade in Ivory Will Help Protect Elephants." Africa. Ed. Laura K. Egendorf. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Elephants, Markets, and Mandates." Fraser Forum (Apr. 2003). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
[25] Juanru Li. Dawu Gu. yuhao Lua. (2012). Android Malware Forensics: Reconstruction of Malicious Events: Dept of Computer Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. [Online] Available: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=6258204
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2008). Reframing organizations. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.
Communication in social environments is necessary for police officers because they have to make fast decisions about interacting with victims, witnesses, and suspects. Specifically, the better communication that the officers ...