Tennessee Williams is known to be one of the greatest American playwrights of the twentieth century. Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire depicted the female characters as helpless victims in the south’s gender stereotypical and patriarchal society. In Williams’ plays, readers can see the gradual leaning towards violence. Critics have related this to anger and resentment toward his parents for not preventing his sister, Rose Williams, from undergoing the prefrontal lobotomy that left her absent from her formal self. After his sister’s tragic surgery, Williams’ fell into addiction which caused the topics of his plays to be centered around addiction, alcoholism, mental health, and death, all of which forced woman into stereotypes and a patriarchal
According to the Oxford dictionary, a stereotype is "a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.” As stated by Saul McLeod of Simple Psychology, stereotypes reduce the amount of processing and thinking that people have to do when meeting a new person or visiting a new place. The positive outlook of stereotyping is the allowance of quick responses to situations that quite similarly have happened before. However, with this simplistic grouping people tend to ignore differences between individuals and make generalizations that might not be true. To elaborate the term stereotyping, there is a multitude of different classifications. The stereotypes that are widely known to society are religious stereotypes, racial stereotypes and gender stereotypes. A gender stereotype is harmful when it limits the abilities of men and woman to develop their own personalities, and pursuit in the working world. According to the UN’s human rights webpage, “a gender stereotype is a generalized view or preconception about attributes or characteristics that are or ought to be possessed by, or the roles that are or should be performed by women and men.” In A Streetcar Named Desire readers are shown a multitude of very obvious forms of gender stereotyping. The stereotype of the submissive wife is portrayed by Stella Kowalski, who is the oversimplified, obedient, and passive wife. Her sister Blanche DuBois was raised as an educated, upper-class woman, who instead of being shown has a respected Southern lady, is shown as a faded and cheap stereotypical southern belle. Both women are portrayed as the weaker sex who are both under the control and authority of Stanley Kowalski, the bombastic, overcompensating
Tennessee Williams is known to be a Southern playwright of American drama. Williams knew how to show haunting elements like psychological drama, loneliness, and inexcusable violence in his plays. Critics say Williams often depicted women who were suffering from critical downfalls due to his sister Rose Williams. Rose was always fighting with a mental health condition known as schizophrenia all her life. The character Laura in The Glass Menagerie is always compared to Rose, because they were both socially awkward and very quiet girls. This may be true, but one can look at Blanche DuBois from A Street Car Named Desire shadows his sister’s life and characteristics more than Laura did. In the obituary of Rose Williams that was written by Philip Hoare, he says, “She grew up outgoing, using make-up earlier than other girls, and was remembered as “very pretty and a bit standoffish” (Hoare). This parallel sounds remarkably like Blanche and does not sound like Laura’s characteristics. Laura never wore make up and her personality did not keep others distant. She was distant to others, because of her disability. Also Roses down fall is very similar to Blanche DuBois down fall in the play and end result. Laura never has a down fall in The Glass Menagerie. Laura seems to have hope in the end of the play. Laura was a tribute to show Rose’s innocence, but Blanche was to show Rose’s true colors. Tennessee Williams uses elements of appearance, age, gentleman callers, sexuality, and the fear of homosexuality to show his sisters down fall in the character Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire.
told Allan "I saw, I know, you disgust me…"( p.96). To Allan, Blanche seemed to
Blanche Dubois suffers from a number of different problems in the play A Streetcar Named Desire. Though some problems may come from things she has done, her overall downfall has come from factors that are beyond her control.
When discussing the notion that “Love can often lead to the creation of an ‘Outsider’." there are cases in our literary examples that would agree with the statement, and some that would not. Outsiders in Much Ado About Nothing, Pride and Prejudice and A Streetcar Named Desire are created by both love and other themes, whether it be class, power, disinterest or a scandal.
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.
According to the oxford dictionary a stereotype is; a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. In the text there are two female stereotypes that are depicted. These stereotypes are, that the girls are sex objects and are only there for the males pleasure and use. The other is, that the older women are typical stay at home mothers, not having a job or a life. The first stereotype is what the play has been written about, the most predominant example is the gang rape of Tracy. This example shows exactly how the boys think of the girls as objects; another example is how Ricko only talks to Tiffany so he can have sex with her. Through
2. What causes Mitch and Blanche to take a "certain interest" in one another? That is, what is the source of their immediate attraction? What seems to draw them together? What signs are already present to suggest that their relationship is doomed/problematic?
Written in 1947, by playwright Tennessee Williams, the play A Streetcar Named Desire opens in the 1940s in the well-known city of New Orleans. Readers are presented with the young couple Stan and Stella Kowalski who live below another young couple, Eunice and Steve. While Stan and Stella manage to maintain a relationship, it is abusive. Stella reunites with her alcoholic sister Blanche, after learning that the family plantation had been lost due to bankruptcy. Blanche, a widow often finds herself in difficult and unforeseen circumstances. Blanche’s poor choices and vulnerability leads to an affair with Stan’s poker buddy Mitch. Coinciding with his abusive nature, Stanley rapes Blanche. No one believes her until the very end, causing her to get sent away to a mental institution. While the play and film were smashing, each had their similarities overall, in regards to setting, plot, and characters while differences concerned narrative technique.
In conclusion, Gretchen is a hero in many ways in the book, Until They Bring the Streetcars Back. Gretchen is a girl who isn't treated well, but she was always worried and warm hearted towards Cal and to those around her. In addition, she showed courage by telling Cal about her father’s abuse, and that was a risk she took at a cost no matter what happened. Finally, she was a tenacious person who kept on going despite the challenges that came in her way. Just like most characters in the book Gretchen did not save lives, but she did teach us something. She taught us that no matter how complicating things might get we should know that things will change. Although Gretchen was an outcast in school and lacked communication, she was smart in her
After two world wars, the balance of power between the genders in America had completely shifted. Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire is a harsh, yet powerful play that exposes the reality of the gender struggle. Williams illustrates society’s changing attitudes towards masculinity and femininity through his eloquent use of dramatic devices such as characterization, dialogue, setting, symbolism, and foreshadowing.
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.
In this passage, Williams’ emphasises the nature of Blanche’s demise through the contrapuntal mode of the scene juxtaposing Blanche’s bathing with Stanley and Stella’s conversation. Williams wrote in a letter to Elia Kazan, who was to direct the film production of the play, that ‘It is a thing (misunderstanding) not a person (Stanley) that destroys (Blanche) in the ends’. This passage is significant as it shows the extent of Stanley’s misunderstanding of Blanche and his stubbornness to ascertain his condemnations to Stella. Furthermore, the use of colloquial lexis shows the true feebleness of Stanley’s claim because his judicial façade is diminished and shows the dangerous influence of claims as he sways Mitch away from Blanche. Stella’s character
In Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams uses the suicide of Blanche's husband to illuminate Blanche's insecurities and immoral behavior. When something terrible happens to someone, it often reveals who he or she truly is. Blanche falls victim to this behavior, and she fails to face her demons. This displays how the play links a character’s illogical choices and their inner struggles.
Character Conflict in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. 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.
As a playwright write William’s was not afraid to depict his own life through his literary works. William’s has been a very significant author in literature, as described by the New York Times (1983) as “the most important American playwright after Eugene O 'Neill”. Tennessee William’s was also recognized because of the way he wrote, and his impact on society, and his personal experiences, inserted into the plays. ‘He had a profound effect on the American theater and on American playwrights and actors. He wrote with deep sympathy and expansive humor about outcasts in our society. Though his images were often violent, he was a poet of the human heart’ (M. Gussow, 1983). Three of his most famous works, out of all that he had were The Glass Menagerie, A street Car Named Desire, and lastly Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. In all three of these plays they depicted/ reflected a point in time where William’s went through a negative experience, which influenced him to insert these experiences into the plays. Also in all his plays, they were about a family and their struggles to see the reality of their world and trying not to go along with the norms of society. A similarity in all the plays was that William’s made the women in all these plays as himself. In other words the women represented his life. "It 's true my heroines often speak for me. That doesn 't make them transvestites. Playwrights