Brighton Beach Memoirs Family’s Struggle
Brighton Beach Memoirs is the story of one family's struggle to survive in the pre-World War II age of the "Great Depression". This was a time of great hardship where pain and suffering were eminent. In this play, Neil Simon gives us a painfully realistic view of life during the late 1930s.
The setting takes place in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York, in the fall of 1937. It is a lower-income area inhabited by mostly Jews, Irish, and Germans. The house is described as a wooden-framed, 2 floor, establishment near the beach.
The main character and narrator is Eugene Jerome. Eugene is a 15-year-old boy who is in the midst of going through puberty. Like Rusty-James in Rumble Fish, Eugene looks up to his older brother Stanley. His hobbies and hopes include playing baseball in hopes of becoming a New York Yankee, writing, and to see the "Golden Palace of the Himalayas", which in other words is seeing a naked woman. Eugene always feels as if he is being blamed for everything that goes wrong. He finds liberation from a household of seven by writing in his diary, which he calls his memoirs.
Stanley is Eugene's 18-year-old, older brother. Stanley can be described as a person who stands up for his principles. Eugene is constantly looking to him for advice with his pubescent "problems". Stanley had to work young to support the family. We later see him losing his paycheck from gambling and almost joining the army.
Kate and Jack Jerome are Eugene's parents. They are constantly looking to Eugene for things to be done. They have it very hard supporting their own family and her sister Blanche's family. Jack had to take up many jobs to support everybody, which resulted in a heart attack. We later see Jacks relatives escaping from the Nazi occupation in Poland to come and live with him.
Blanche is Eugene's aunt and Kate's sister. When Blanche's husband David died, she found she could not support her family. Kate and Jack agreed to take her and her two daughters, Nora and Laurie, in and support them. We see that Blanche has many problems of being independent. Her daughters, Nora and Laurie, have their own share of problems.
For an immigrant, entering into the United States during the early 1900s was a time in search for new beginnings, new possibilities, and a new life. Similarly, this concept was the same for Sara. In the early chapters of the novel, Sara's character is introduced as a young, courageous girl who works hard every day providing money and food for her family. Her job consisted of working in shops and going out into the streets of New York as a beggar
the play. It looks at the person he is and the person he becomes. It
During scene one, the audience is introduced to Blanche as Stella's sister, who is going to stay with her for a while. Blanch tries her best to act normal and hide her emotion from her sister, but breaks down at the end of scene one explaining to Stella how their old home, the Belle Reve, was "lost." It is inferred that the home had to be sold to cover the massive funeral expenses due to the many deaths of members of the Dubois family. As Blanche whines to her sister, "All of those deaths! The parade to the graveyard! Father, mother! Margaret, that dreadful way!" (21). The audience sees this poor aging woman, who has lost so many close to her, and now her home where she grew up. How could anyone look at her, and not feel the pain and suffering that she has to deal with by herself? Williams wants the audience to see what this woman has been through and why she is acting the way she is. Blanche's first love was also taken from her. It seems that everyone she loves is dead except for her sister. Death plays a crucial role in Blanche's depression and other mental irregularities. While these circumstances are probably enough for the audience to feel sympathy for Blanche, Williams takes it a step further when we see Blanche's...
...ices, such an attempt to elicit sympathy for this monster falls short” (Bell 2). Stanley is looked at as the monster of the play which is how he should be viewed. Luck was not on Blanches side through her life which made her make the mistakes she made. Even though her past was not clean, Stanley did not purge her of this. He tried to show her the reality of the world, but through his brutal treatment, only made her sensibility worse. Stanley is a primitive ape-like man, driven only by instinct, who views women as objects and has no respect for others. He is a wife batter and a rapist who is responsible for the crumbling sanity of Blanche who is “the last victim of the Old South, one who inherits the trappings of that grand society but pays the final price for the inability to adapt to a modern world that seeks to wipe grace and gentility out of existence” (Bell 2).
Blanche’s developmental history or character development points to her diagnosis. Blanche comes to New Orleans to stay with her sister Stella after being fired from her job as a schoolteacher due to having an inappropriate affair with a teenage student. When she arrives to see her sister, she is consumed with insecurities regarding her appearance and is condescending to her sister’s humble lifestyle. Stella’s husband Stanley immediately has distrust and dislike for Blanche and treats her
Blanche Dubois the main character of the play, was an English teacher in Mississippi. She presents herself as a very prim, proper, and prudent person. She once proudly told her sister Stella that her name in French meant white woods. Blanche Dubois is also overly concerned with her appearance, accessories, bathing and age. She was very disturbed by the light, and usually preferred to be in the dark. Many believe it was to prevent people from noticing her real age. Deep inside she was hurt and destroyed. All of this pain was caused by the death of the love of her life. She was married to a young man named Allan, and they loved each other very much. Until one day Blanche found out that Allan was sleeping with another man. Once she confessed to him she knew his secret he committed suicide. Ever since, Blanches’ life was never the same again.
...ene 11, pg 144) While Blanche is characterize as the weak sister, Stella displayed much more cowardly actions. Her absence in sister’s tough times and her inability to do the right thing in the end is the ultimate cause of Blanche’s incarceration.
From the first moment the Williams introduces Blanche, it is evident that she believes herself to be of a higher class, and this is shown with how uncomfortable she is around those of a lower class. When Blanche is shown an act of kindness from Eunice, “Why don’t you set down?” her response to this person of a lower class than herself is dismissive, “…I’d like to be left alone.” She instantly expects too much from a place called ‘Elysian Fields’. Blanche feels uneasy about being around those that are of a lower class, especially of those who she does not know, which is clear when she is reunited with her sister. She immediately becomes ostentatious in her actions, and begins to speak with “feverish vivacity”, “Stella, Oh Stella, Stella! Stella for Star!” Perhaps she is relieved to be with her sister once again, or it could be that she feels she now has someone to be dominant over, since she has little control over her own life. Blanche comes across as being very motherly towards Stella, “You messy child” in spite of the fact that Stella is soon to beco...
Blanche could not accept her past and overcome it. She was passionately in love with Alan; but after discovering that he was gay, she could not stomach the news. When she revealed how disgusted she was, it prompted Alan to commit suicide. She could never quite overcome the guilt and put it behind her. Blanche often encountered flashbacks about him. She could hear the gun shot and polka music in her head. After Alan’s death, she was plagued by the deaths of her relatives. Stella moved away and did not have to deal with the agony Blanche faced each day. Blanche was the one who stuck it out with her family at Belle Reve where she had to watch as each of her remaining family members passed away. “I took the blows in my face and my body! All of those deaths! The long parade to the graveyard! Father, Mother! Margaret, that dreadful way! You just came home in time for the funerals, Stella. And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. Funerals are quiet, but deaths—not always” (Scene 1, page 1546). Blanche lost Belle Reve because of all the funeral expenses. Belle Reve had been in her family for generations, and it slipped through her fingers while she watched helplessly. Blanche’s anguish caused her loneliness. The loneliness fueled her abundance of sexual encounters. Her rendezvous just added to her problems and dirtied her rep...
The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare is a play that is ahead of its time in its views toward gender roles within society. Katherine is a woman who is intelligent, and is not afraid to assert her views on any given situation. She is paired with another obstinate character in Pertuchio. The Marriage formed between the two is a match made in heaven for two reasons. First Because Katherine is strong enough to assert her views, and more importantly, she realizes when she should assert them. The second reason the bond survives is that Petruchio is strong enough to accept the fact that Katherine has a mind and, more importantly he loves her for that reason. Petruchio cleverly weaves the relationship into the framework of society without compromising the integrity of the relationship. Petruchio does this by comparing Katherine’s at attitude to repulsive clothing. Carefully and calculatingly, Petruchio forges a relationship that is envied by all who witness it.
Stanley (Stella's husband) represents a theme of realism in the play; he is shown as a primitive, masculine character that is irresistible to Stella and on some levels even to his "opponent" Stella's sister Blanche.
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...
Brazil is both the largest and most populous country in South America. It is the 5th largest country worldwide in terms of both area (more than 8.5 Mio. km2 ) and habitants (appr. 190 million). The largest city is Sao Paulo which is simultaneously the country's capital; official language is Portuguese. According to the WorldBank classification for countries, Brazil - with a GDP of 1,5 bn. US $ in 2005 and a per capita GPD of appr. 8.500 US - can be considered as an upper middle income country and therefore classified as an industrializing country, aligned with the classification as one of the big emerging markets (BEM) next to Argentina and Mexico. Per capita income is constantly increasing as well as literacy rate (current illiteracy rate 8%). Due to its high population rate (large labour pool), its vast natural resources and its geographical position in the centre of South America, it bears enormous growth potential in the near future. Aligned with an increasing currency stability, international companies have heavily invested in Brazil during the past decade. According to CIA World Factbook, Brazil has the 11th largest PPP in 2004 worldwide and today has a well established middle income economy with wide variations in levels of development. Thus, today Brazil is South America's leading economic power and a regional leader.
When someone is a female their first thought should not be weak or nurturing, just as when someone is male their first though shouldn’t always be powerful. Unfortunately it has becomes so ingrained in societies mentality that this is the way that things work. The Taming of the Shrew is a past writing piece that expands on a mentality that is modern. The male gender cannot be put into this same constraint. Petruchio is the epitome of what society would describe a male as. He thinks he is in charge and always the superior to women. He expects Katherine to always do what he tells her to do, because he believes that is her duty as his wife. Moreover he should not be expected to do that for her. Furthermore, Bianca is what many would describe as the perfect woman. She is nurturing and she does not speak out against what she is told. When she does speak she always speaks like a lady. She exists merely for decoration in the home and to serve her husband. Katherine is the inconsistency in this stereotype on femininity. Her purpose in the novel originally is to rebel against this biased thought on female gender roles. Katherine is not afraid to speak out against the things that she is told to do. If she disagrees with something she will act on it and she is just as strong as the men in the novel; which is why many of the men actually fear her. Katherine is not submissive and does not believe that the only reason that she exists is to serve a husband. Katherine does not want to be just the damsel in distress, she wants to be in charge. At the end of the novel there is a switch in the personalities of Katherine and Bianca. This alteration provides the purpose of showing that gender is not something that someone can be confined in just because they were born a female. A woman can have many different traits and still be feminine. It is impossible to put femininity in a box because there are no real qualities for what
coming home from a day of work. Stanley is a superb specimen of primitive, unthinking,