Tennessee Williams gives insight into three ordinary lives in his play, “A Streetcar Named Desire” which is set in the mid-1930’s in New Orleans. The main characters in the play are Blanche, Stanley, and Stella. All three of these characters suffer from personalities that differentiate each of them to great extremes. Because of these dramatic contrarieties in attitudes, there are mounting conflicts between the characters throughout the play. The principal conflict lies between Blanche and Stanley, due to their conflicting ideals of happiness and the way things “ought to be”.
Williams begins by introducing us to the happy couple, Stanley and Stella Kowalski. The two live in a run-down part of New Orleans, but are content in their surroundings and their lifestyle. Stanley Kowalski is a Polish Immigrant who strongly believes in the role of a man in his own household. One may perceive him as being unrefined and rude, due to his blunt nature, but to himself and Stella, it is just his practical attitude towards life. Evident, through his interaction and dialogue with Stella and other characters, is his need to prove his masculinity by being dominant and imposing.
In contrast, Stella is overly mild-tempered and always striving to please. Generally, she is able to adapt to all situations. This ability to adapt proves to be useful, as both her husband and her sister, Blanche, have such strong personalities. From the beginning, it is apparent that Stella often plays the peacemaker. She was able to foresee that Stanley and her visiting sister would clash. In hopes of avoiding any confrontation, she warned them both to be on their best behaviour. Stella is soft-spoken, speaking only when it is needed, and expressing her grief only when it overwhelms her, whereas Blanche is the opposite: an outspoken woman, with many opinions.
Superficial is the first impression that Blanche gives when she enters the play. Consumed by appearance and face value, she is unable to see that Stella’s new lifestyle is not as horrid as she imagines. In comparison to Belle Reve, it is true that these New Orleans slums may not meet Dubois standards, but Blanche is unable to see beyond the way things appear in order to realize that Stella’s world does not revolve around material items. This flaw is intertwined with her vanity and her need keep up appearances. On the surface, Blanche appears to be snobbish and conceited.
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.
Stella, Stanley's wife in the play, is a passive woman. She is displayed this way through how she responds to the people and situations around her. When she is beaten by Stanley, she understands that his drunkenness takes hold of him and he has no control over his actions. She knows he never means her harm and his intentions are good.
Blanche Dubois provides as Williams’ core personage throughout ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’. Her vulnerability in a changing society and monomania with her appearance, along with her mental fragility both cumulates pathos from the audience and draws in our attention. Furthermore, the contrast between a pure southern belle and a cheap seductress, as well as her relationship with Stanley, allows Williams to explore ideas relating to the patriarchal society of the time. As the play progresses and the audience observe Blanche endure an exigent predicament, we see her come forth as the conspicuous protagonist in the play and a victim of circumstance.
The play A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams takes place in the late 1940’s in New Orleans. Blanche DuBois is the protagonist of this play. She arrives at her sister’s home and puts on an air of conceit and purity. Her invented personality is in contradiction to her past actions. Blanche, a disturbed woman, is living between reality and fantasy. Her alcohol addiction amplifies her fantasies. Due to her haunted past, Blanche has a strong need for attention, so she dresses in fine clothes, speaks with eloquence, and prides herself on propriety. Blanche DuBois is not the conceited woman that she pretends to be. She is a victim of her painful past and has allowed guilt to consume her life.
While fantasy and theatricality begin with Blanche, they do not end with her departure in the play. As Blanche leaves with the doctor, Stella is still living in denial. “I couldn’t believe her story and go on living with Stanley!” she tells Eunice beforehand. Stella chooses to live with herself and Stanley by telling herself a much greater lie than any ever concocted by her sister. The necessity of fantasy in handling reality is reinforced a final time, as Eunice assures Stella, “Don’t you ever believe it. You’ve got to keep on goin’, honey. No matter what happens, we’ve all got to keep on going.”
Stella isn't doing this out of incompetence or disregard for her sister but because she truly believes she doesn’t have another option. Or, as Stella's neighbor Eunice says, “Don’t ever believe it. Life has got to go on. No matter what happens, you’ve got to keep on going” (Williams, pg. 133). This line in particular is interesting because it sounds like survival instinct. These words, “survival” and “instinct,” should send the reader back to Blanche’s rant against Stanley in Scene Four. Where Blanche tells her sister that Stanley represents the law of the jungle, ape-like passions, and that Stella should move forward and progress with the world instead of her grueling counterpart. She begs her sister, “Don’t hang back with the brutes!” (Williams, pg. 72). Yet, Stella ignores all logic in hopes of achieving her American Dream which Stella feels she needs to live a happy and acceptable
Streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams's play A Streetcar Named Desire contains more within its characters, situations, and story than appears on its surface. Joseph Krutch, author of Twentieth Century Interpretations of A Streetcar Named Desire wrote, “The author’s 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 character Stanley represents the theme of reality. Stanley Kowalski is the simple blue-collar husband of Stella. His actions, reactions, and words show reality in its harshest most purist form. His actions are similar to a primitive human. For example he doesn’t close the door when he uses the restroom. This rudeness represents the harsh reality that Blanche refuses to accept. Moreover, when he was drunk he hit Stella. This attack on Blanches sister could be a symbolic “wake up” slap to the face of Blanche.
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.
Tennessee Williams explores in his play” A Streetcar Named Desire”, suggests the main protagonist, Blanche, who has ruins her reputation due to her adversity. She is kick out of Laurel. She have no choice, but to move to her sister’s house. This place can allow her to create a new identity and new life. However when Blanche is revealed , it cause her to choose to live in her own fantasy world , because she cannot face the harsh reality. The Play” A Streetcar Named Desire”, by Tennessee Williams illustrates that sensitive people may succumb to fantasy to survive when they faced adversity, ,which forsake their identity to find an acceptable existence.
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.
The most obvious example of a savage in the play is Stanley Kowalski. He is a large well-toned, territorial male with simple beliefs and a short temper. He does not have many manners and does not care what people think of him. He seems very simple but there is more to him than meets the eye. Stanley feels threatened by Blanche not only because she has invaded his territory, but also because she is a reminder to his wife of what she sacrificed to marry him and of the severe limitations on what he has been able to provide her in return (Adler 51). At first, Stanley acts physically dominant over both Blanche and Stella, by rifling through Blanche’s possessions (Williams 124), by quoting to Stella and Blanche that "every man is a king" (Williams 197-198), by throwing the radio out the window in a drunken frenzy and by actually striking his pregnant wife (Stella) (Williams 152-155). However, towards the end of the play, Stanley realizes his ...
Stella Kowalski’s character, parallels to Stanley’s and represents the ego in the play. herself from her hometown and start a life in this vigorous world made by Stanley. she stands for the ego who wants to create a balance between desires and ideas, between body and soul, heart and mind to have a normal life. Blanche is the only one who wants to warn her of what she does. Loving Blanche, she also dislikes her and at the same time fears her. She hopes Blanche marry Mitch for her sister’s sake and for herself too. Actually she wants to get rid of
Stella represents an important part in this drama by providing a contrast to how life can change people when they go down different paths. In Contrast to her sister, Stella is bound to love. Although she fell in love with a primitive, common man, she most definitely loves him. Stella desires only to make Stanley happy and live a beautiful life together. She wants to find peace between her sister and her husband yet instead she finds conflict afflicting her on both sides. Blanche uses her dilutions and tries to sway Stella away from Stanley yet Stella takes all these slanders and belittles them. Stella does this because she loves Stanley and since she is pregnant with his baby.
“A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig” by Charles Lamb is a tale about a swineherd named Ho-ti, who left his oldest son, Bobo to watch over the pigs. Bobo, of course, likes to play with fire.(coincidence?) Bobo then goes on to set the pig cottage on fire and it burns down to ashes, cooking all nine pigs with it. He began smelling something he had never smelt in the air. His mouth began to water and salivate. Bobo started searching for any alive pigs, to no avail; although, he did find a dead pig, which he stuck his fingers in. Bobo burnt his fingers and human nature took over as he put them in his mouth. He soon convinced his father Ho-ti to try it and he tasted the amazing