Throughout the play a Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams shows perfect examples of Id, ego, and superego, the three parts of the psyche. In the play Williams three main characters, Stella, Stanley and Blanche, fit great into the role of the parts of the psyche. Each character plays a role in the others type of ego. The first is know as the Id according to Sigmund Freud, who made the structural model of the psyche, is the unconscious part of our mind that deals with biological parts of of our personality, primitive behavior and also acts on impulse(McLeod). Stanley is best representation of this in the play, he’s acts very instinctive, aggressive and has this desire of pleasure with women that is in scene one during the stage direction …show more content…
The superego is also know as our ‘conscience’, them at the beginning of scene two Blanche takes the first of many baths to “calm her nerves” as she says but in reality she’s trying to cleanse her conscience of what happened to her husband since she feels as if she was the reason for killing himself(McLeod). In scene three Blanche states “I guess it is that I just have—old-fashioned ideals!”(pg 108) this is another example of how she represents the superego by how she has these set ideals that she’s learned from her parents. The superego aims for perfection which we see Blanche try so hard to be, a prime example of this is in scene three is when Blanche is about to walk into Stanley’s poker night with Stella and ask how she looks stating “I feel so hot and frazzled. Wait till I powder before you open the door. Do I look done in?”(pg 49). Blanche throughout the play is always checking up on how she looks and even go far to try and not look bad by buying lamp shades to put over the light bulbs in the house so it’s harder to see her face. She also only goes out with Mitch at night and never stands in the light when she’s with him we see this in scene nine where Mitch says “I’ve never seen you in the afternoon.”(pg 143), Blanche also tells Mitch when she first meets him how she’s Stella’s little sister in scene three despite her being older than her. Blanche chases after her youth by doing these things so she can be seen by everyone as this perfect girl. Furthermore, Tennessee Williams play a Streetcar Named Desire, sets up a perfect representation of Sigmund Freud’s model of the psyche using the three main characters in play as Id, ego, and
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.
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...
In 'A Streetcar Named Desire' we focus on three main characters. One of these characters is a lady called Blanche. As the play progresses, we gradually get to know more about Blanche and the type of person she really is in contrast to the type of person that she would like everybody else to think she is. Using four main mediums, symbolism and imagery, Blanche's action when by herself, Blanche's past and her dialogue with others such as Mitch, Stanley and the paperboy, we can draw a number of conclusions about Blanche until the end of Scene Five. Using the fore mentioned mediums we can deter that Blanche is deceptive, egotistical and seductive.
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.
In the play A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams uses his brilliant writing to bring life to his characters in the story. I will be composing a character sketch on Stanley, one of the main actors in the play. I will focus on evaluating Stanley's ever changing character traits in the role he plays. They consist of different moods that he demonstrates during the play: his aggressiveness, his love for Stella and also his rudeness and cruelty towards Blanche.
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.
In Williams’ Streetcar Named Desire the characters represent two opposing themes. These themes are of illusion and reality. The two characters that demonstrate these themes are Blanche, and Stanley. Blanche represents the theme of Illusion, with her lies, and excuses. Stanley demonstrates the theme of reality with his straightforward vulgar ness. Tennessee Williams uses these characters effectively to demonstrate these themes, while also using music and background characters to reinforce one another.
The arts stir emotion in audiences. Whether it is hate or humor, compassion or confusion, passion or pity, an artist's goal is to construct a particular feeling in an individual. Tennessee Williams is no different. In A Streetcar Named Desire, the audience is confronted with a blend of many unique emotions, perhaps the strongest being sympathy. Blanch Dubois is presented as the sympathetic character in Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire as she battles mental anguish, depression, failure and disaster.
In both plays, Hedda Gabler and A Streetcar Named Desire, the authors create very complex characters whose obsession creates conflict regarding their private lives. Tennessee Williams creates Blanche, whose the heroine and the antagonist Stanley, whose the antagonist. On the other hand, in the play Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen creates Hedda, the heroine and the antagonist, Judge Brack, the antagonist. Both authors establish antagonists, such as Stanley and Judge Brack, containing some sympathetic elements to help the reader understand their motivations towards the heroines, Blanche and Hedda. The characters of Stanley and Judge Brack obtain motivations analyzed by the reader to be known as vengeance and scornful but sympathetic acts to oppress the protagonists of the story.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The mind is possibly the most complex part of humans. Scientists can understand how bones and organs work after careful examination. However, the human mind isn 't exactly a physical thing. Many famous psychologists have created multiple theories on how they believe the mind works. One famous psychologist, Dr. Sigmund Freud, created the theory of the Id, Ego and Superego. This is part of the five theories in his overall theory of the personality. His theory can be best viewed in One Flew over the Cuckoo 's Nest. The novel is about rebelling against authority and prominently displays theme of individualism versus conformity. A man named R. P. McMurphy is admitted into a mental ward led by matriarch, Nurse Ratched. Ratched runs her ward in a way that not only follows the laws of society but, also emasculates the men in this ward. Thus, McMurphy challenges Ratched 's dictatorship in order to free the