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Males tend to have love-Hate relationship in Tennessee Williams’ and William Shakespeare’s plays. Stanley from A Street Car Named Desire was a gruff, hardworking blue collar man, who has been living the married life for a decent amount of time to his wife Stella. Othello on the other hand was a man that was a highly ranked in the military, and seen as a highly respected man; Until Othello smothered his newly married wife Desdemona to death. Both of these men may have been from different time periods but they are the same when it comes to their attitudes towards leadership, treatment of women, and their way to confirm assumptions. In Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire and William Shakespeare’s famous Tragedy Othello, Stanley and Othello sensitivity to their racial stereotypes encourage their strong leadership qualities to disprove the preconceived notions people have about their ethnicity. Both males take out their frustrations about how they are treated on their so called beloved wives. Lastly their low self-worth causes them to doubt their own intuition and rely on confidants to confirm their assumptions. Racial stereotypes are the driving force for both male leads’ attitudes in these plays. Stanley is seen as being a “different species” (Williams 18) or a “polack” (Williams 81) in A Streetcar Named Desire. Since Americans tend to think racist Polish jokes are funny, they seem to forget that those jokes can “easily be converted into moron jokes” (Morreal 77).Stanley’s need to show people like Blanche that he is not unintelligent explains his hostility towards her because he is used to people trying to “swindled” (Williams 32) him. The same is true for Othello, he knew that his peers undermined him because he was “... ... middle of paper ... ...survive. Works Cited Adelman, Janet. “Iago’s Alter Ego: Race as Projection in Othello.” Shakespeare Quarterly 48.2 (1997):125-144. JSTOR. Web. 20 Nov.2013. Berry, Edward. “Othello’s Alienation.” Studies in English Literature 30.2 (1990): 315-333. JSTOR. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. Gruber, Elizabeth. “Insurgent Flesh: Epistemology and violence in Othello and Mariam.” Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 32.4 (2003): 392-410. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 8 Nov. 2013. Morreal, John. Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humor. UK: Wiley-blackwell, 2009.Print. Sambrook, Hana., and Tennessee Williams. A Streetcar Named Desire. 3rd ed. London: York P, 2000. Print. Shakespeare, William, ed. E. A. J. Honigmann. Othello. New York: Routledge, 1997. Print. Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. Scarborough: New American Library, 1986. Print.
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.
Tennessee Williams's play A Streetcar Named Desire contains more within it's characters, situations, and story than appears on its surface. Joseph Krutch, author of Twentieth Century Interpretations of A Streetcar Named Desire wrote, “The authors perceptions remain subtle and delicate… The final impression left is, surprisingly enough not of sensationalism but of subtlety” (38.) As in many of Williams's plays deeper meanings are understood only through close examination of each scene. The reader must ask him or herself as they go whether or not something might lend more than what lies on the surface.
Arthur Shopenhauer once described a racist man as a “…miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.” Without a doubt, racism is one of the key themes in Othello, which challenges the characters thoughts and actions throughout the play. One specific character, Iago, is driven by such racial distort, especially against Othello, that ultimately motivates his ingenious rampage of revenge and confusion. Hence, the characters racist attitudes, but mainly Iago’s, creates the momentum needed to spur the confusion and tension between the characters, resulting in the popular Shakespearean dramatic ending. Iago’s word choice describes very clearly his racial vision of Othello. He refers to Othello throughout the play by many racial slurs: “the moor”, “an erring barbarian”, and “black ram”. His attitude towards Othello implies certain personal characteristics: it shows that he is, jealous, hateful, and insecure “of his own inferiority.” From the beginning, Iago has been the “playmaker” of the play, always instigating the trouble and trying somehow to damage Othello.
Orkin, Martin. “Othello and the “plain face” Of Racism.” 2nd ed. Vol. 38. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 166-88. Shakespeare Quarterly. Folger Shakespeare Library in Association with George Washington University, Summer 1987. Web. 12 Mar. 2014. .
The Bard of Avon’s tragic play Othello expresses racism; there is no doubt about this among most critics. However, to what degree – to a vulgar extent? Or to an excusable level?
Gardner, Helen. "Othello: A Tragedy of Beauty and Fortune." Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from "The Noble Moor." British Academy Lectures, no. 9, 1955.
Gardner, Helen. "Othello: A Tragedy of Beauty and Fortune." Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from "The Noble Moor." British Academy Lectures, no. 9, 1955.
Riddel, Joseph N. "A Streetcar Named Desire-Nietzche Descending." Modern Critical Views Tennessee Williams. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. 13-22. Print.
Watkinson, A. "Othello: The Ironic Interdependence of Othello and Iago." Novels for Students. 5 November 2004. http://www.enotes.com/othello/743/print
Adelman, Janet. “Iago's Alter Ego: Race as Projection in Othello.” Shakespeare Quarterly 48.2 (1997): 125-44. JSTOR. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.
Williams uses techniques such as characters, plot and dialogue to address this issue in throughout the text. Williams demonstrates the theme of gender roles through the character Stanley. Stanley was a misogynist male at the centre of a male world and was described as “a rickly feathered male bird among hens” in the stage directions of scene 1. This theme continues throughout the plot of the play. Stanley is the most dominant male throughout the play. His decision are final and he has control over Stella and his mates .Stanley make the comment “I am a king around here” in scene 8. He treats everyone like they’re below him and don’t deserve the respect he does and his tantrums make him look childish.
Jones, Eldred. "Othello- An Interpretation" Critical Essays on Shakespeare's Othello. Ed. Anthony G. Barthelemy Pub. Macmillan New York, NY 1994.
Gardner, Helen. “Othello: A Tragedy of Beauty and Fortune.” Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from “The Noble Moor.” British Academy Lectures, no. 9, 1955.
Ambivalence in the play is largely caused by the relationship between Stanley and Blanche. They concurrently produce both appalling and appealing tendencies. Both characters display elements o...
Othello is one of Shakespeare?s prime examples of an ?other?, someone who doesn?t truly belong to society by some unfortunate inheritance of ethnicity and race, made worse by the negative stereotypes constructed by the Venetians to apply to outsiders like him. Although Othello is a gifted military hero, a ?worthy governor? (II.i.30) and a ?full soldier? (II.i.36), he is also damned by his color, his blackness. Most of the Venetian insiders, including his wife Desdemona, refer to Othello as merely ?the Moor?, and label him with such blatant insults as ?l...