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ENGLISH ESSAY
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.
Let's begin by talking about the way Stanley's aggressiveness affects the climax of the play. During scene three, while the boys were playing poker, Blanche and Stella come into the kitchen and, as a result, disrupt the games.
This got Stanley very angry and violent . For this reason he got up and began attacking Stella. Here is a passage from that scene: ' Men: Take it easy, Stanley, easy fellow,--Let's all--. Stella: You lay your hands on me and I'll—'(57) This just proves what I was saying about one of Stanley's moods. His violence and the fact that he looses control of his actions is one characteristic which I didn't particularly like at all about Stanley. Here's another passage in Scene 10 that really show's how mean Stanley really is. This scene depicts when Stanley gets into a fight with Blanche. The scene concludes on a sour note when Blanche breaks a bottle top on the table and try's to hurt Stanley . Stanley says: 'Oh! S...
He said “Pig-Polack-disgusting-vulgar-greasy…Remember what Heuy Long said-“Every Man is a King!” And I am the King around here, so don’t forget it! My place is cleared! You want me to clear your places?”(Williams131). This proves that Stanley has a violent and disrespectful character. He claims that he is the man of the house and no one else can take his place even temporarily. Every time his dominance is doubted by someone else he feels challenged and impulsive. Especially with women, he gives them no respect but expects their respect and shows a deep desire for control. This relates to the thesis because he talks and acts with women in a very violent way, which makes them emotionally hurt. This scene is also very ironic because Stanley states that he is not an animal and that he is a hundred percent perfect American but in reality he has an inhuman behavior and he is savage, which is portrayed in the way he talks, eats , and acts with
3. How might we get to the bald truth/reality of Stanley and Stella 's relationship during the poker game? How are we supposed to understand Stella 's motivation for being/staying with Stanley, despite his physical abusiveness? (that is, on what is their relationship based/founded/sustained)? How does the discovery of these things affect the relationship between Blanche and Stella, and why is this important?
Tennessee Williams was born Thomas Lanier Williams in 1911. As a successful playwright, his career was greatly influenced by events in his life. He was noted for bringing the reader "a slice of his own life and the feel of southern culture", as his primary sources of inspiration were "the writers he grew up with, his family, and the South." The connection between his life and his work can be seen in several of his plays.
Tennessee Williams used his life experiences to write many successful plays. One of his most successful plays is A Streetcar Named Desire. In this play Williams relates the characters closely to his father, mother, and sister. William’s father was a gambler, a drunk, and very aggressive. Williams’s mother was a Southern Bell and looked down upon people that were not like her, and his sister was suffering from psychological disorders. Stanley is like William’s father, Blanche is like William’s mother and sister, and Allan, Blanche’s dead husband, is like Tennessee Williams. Suchitra Choudhury says that “Tennessee Williams’ plays are acknowledged to be substantially constituted of violence and victimization. . . . Williams’s plays very often end in what seems to be victimization.” The play A Streetcar Named Desire is a classic example of violence and victimization. Stanley is very violent and Blanche is the victim, her past haunting her in the present. Throughout the play we see how Blanche evolves into what seems to be a psychotic breakdown at the end. We see how the need for intimacy ultimately causes her to become psychotic. Blanche struggles with the death of her husband Allan, and as a result she is constantly trying to create a reality of what she believes life should be like. How does the past affect Blanche in the present?
In A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams shows two characters who have very different experiences of the world. For Stanley Kowalski, the world is a comedy. He constantly causes pain to others, especially Blanche, and then laughs at her pain. For example, he hands Blanche a ticket to Laurel as a birthday present, kicking her out of the house. To Stanley this very cruel and insensitive gesture is amusing, but to Blanche it is a hurtful token of rejection. Blanche is a character who experiences the tragedy of the world, as events affect her deeply. For instance, she can not understand how her sister, Stella, can put up with the abuse that Stanley inflicts upon her. Blanche is very concerned about her sister and becomes extremely dismayed when Stanley hits her. This shows the sensitivity of Blanche's character that leads to her tragedy.
Later on in the scene Stanley goes through Blanche’s belongings in a very careless manner as seen when he “pulls open the wardrobe trunk” and “jerks out an armful of dresses.” He becomes increasingly violent with his actions as he “hurls” and “kicks” Blanche’s
...colors of men” have already been established in earlier instances in the play. When Stanley first meets Blanche, he is returning from the bowling alley. Though the stage directions do not explicitly state whether or not Stanley wears his bowling shirt in this scene, the bowling alley evokes the images of Stanley’s bowling shirt, “his green and scarlet bowling shirt,” (717). In this case, Stanley’s appearance not only demonstrates his generations definition of masculinity, as an “aggressive, indulgent, powerful, and proud expression of sex,” (Falk, 95), but also as a bright splotch of color in the otherwise “physical grubbiness,” (Brown, 41) of his home. Thus, Stanley’s character, through both his physical gestus and colorful costumes, becomes symbolic of his generations masculine dominance, overwhelming and controlling the environment in which Blanche arrives.
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.
Tennessee Williams, an American playwright, has been known as the most prominent American southern dramatist. He won his first Pulitzer Prize with Streetcar Named Desire. In this play, Williams shows the need for belief in human value against the natural realistic world. He uses symbols to develop the characters and theme of illusion verses reality within Streetcar Named Desire. The two main characters are Blanche DuBois, an aristocrat southern belle, and Stanley Kowalski the "gaudy seed-bearer." Blanche lives in the superficial world she has made for herself while Stanley lives in the harsh realistic world. The confrontation between Blanche and Stanley is shown throughout the play and is so severe that one must be destroyed.
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. It is a crowded area of the city, causing close relations with neighbors, and the whole town knowing your business. Their section of the split house consists of two rooms, a bathroom, and a porch. This small house is not fit for three people. The main characters of the story are Stella and Stanley Kowalski, the home owners, Blanche DuBois, Stella’s sister, Harold Mitchell (Mitch), Stanley’s friend, and Eunice and Steve Hubbell, the couple that lives upstairs. Blanche is the protagonist in the story because all of the conflicts involve her. She struggles with Stanley’s ideals and with shielding her past.
One of the main themes expressed by Tennessee Williams in his play, A Streetcar Named Desire, is to condemn those who display cruelty and harshness in their treatment of others,especially those who are weak and vulnerable. Williams had a lot of things that happened in his life when he was young. His parents never really cared about him they were selfish drunks who had no desire to care for a kid. Then, when his grandfather was assigned to parish in Clarksdale, Mississippi Williams had to spend his early childhood spent in a parsonage there. Also, as a small child Williams’ almost died from a case of diphtheria. Much of Williams writings were inspired by his depressed life and his own dysfunctional family. He showed examples of it in A Streetcar Named Desire. He uses three characters in this play that demonstrate harsh and cruel treatment of others. Three characters who demonstrate harsh and cruel treatment of others are Blanche, Mitch and Stanley.
When writing a streetcar named desire, Tennessee Williams purposely creates the characters Stanley, Stella, and Blanche with flawed characteristics. The reason that these characters purposely have flaws is to remind the reader that these flaws are within all people. It is to remind us all that we aren’t perfect, and that human nature is about imperfection. Tennessee Williams wants the reader to be able to recognize the flaws within, and wants people to learn from the mistakes that they make due to these
In one conversation with Blanche, Blanche subtly insults him. He realizes this and thunders “Now let’s cut the re-bop!” (40) and scaring Blanche in the moment. With his loud, booming voice, Stanley is able to cause Blanche to cover her ears in pain and exhibit that he is powerful enough to be able to cause discomfort by merely raising his voice and putting her back in her place. Stanley obviously doesn’t do well with insults to his name because when Stella calls him a drunk animal, “Stanley charges after Stella… There is the sound of a blow… [and] the men rush forward and there is grappling and cursing” (63). It is obvious here that Stanley doesn’t like to be compared to an animal and began to take action to prove that that isn’t what you say to someone like him. However, it is ironic that his reaction is very animalistic in order to convey his strength and the magnitude of his masculinity towards his woman and towards the other men as he shakes them off. Another similar instance is when they were at the dinner table for Blanche’s birthday supper and he exclaims “Don’t you ever talk that way to me… I am the king around here, so don’t forget it” (131)!
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.
In scene three Stanley is having his poker party (pg. 57). At this point he is very drunk. Blanche distracting Stanley by listening to the radio instigates him to grab it off the table and toss it out the window. Stella in a state of panic tells everyone to go home which angers Stanley so he chases after her and hits her. This type of behavior is not normal of any human being involved in any relationship. Stanley repeatedly gets what he wants by use of any means possible. In addition the person whoever threatens the existence of his poker game receives a beating, in this case his wife. This scene demonstrates Stanley’s viscous animal like traits with such violence. If what happened here was repeated in today’s society he would find himself in a jail cell with a pending divorce.