Tennessee Williams tells a story of a battle with fantasy and reality through his characters in A Streetcar Named Desire. When the reader is first introduced to the character of Blanche DuBois, she portrays herself as sincere and fragile. Blanche shows up at the house of her sister Stella and her husband Stanley’s home with the intent of staying at their home for a lengthy amount of time. Blanche tells Stella that she has lost Belle Reve, an ancestral home, after the death of many of their relatives and also mentions she has been given a leave of absence from her job as a school teacher because of her bad nerves, “I was so exhausted by all I’d been through my --- nerves broke. I was on the verge of --- lunacy, almost! So Mr. Graves – Mr. Graves …show more content…
Willy Loman is a man that has lived his life trying to achieve the easily attainable American Dream of success and wealth. Yet, Willy himself never achieves such success. Now, he is hopeful that his sons can achieve success that he himself never did. Willy becomes obsessed with his sons becoming successful and wealthy and becomes upset when they do not. Willy begins to have illusions about an affair that he had over 15 years ago. Miller uses the affair to show how one event can determine and define the rest of your life. Willy’s obsession with his inability to achieve his definition of success and the American dream is ultimately his downfall and what leads to his death. However, the reader learns that Willy does not fully give up his dream of wealth and success because he leaves his on Biff a twenty thousand dollar insurance policy. Willy’s refusal to accept his and his son’s reality of not achieving success and instead leave him money to start a business what makes Death of a Salesman tragic. The same can be said with all tragedies; many times a story is defined as tragic because the person or persons involved never got to achieve their dream yet they never lost …show more content…
Hulga is a thirty two year old, educated woman, living with her mother, Mrs. Hopewell, because of a heart condition that requires her to have her be cared for by her mother. The reader also learns that Hulga was born with the name Joy but legally changed her name to rebel against her mother. Hulga is not very kind to her mother but Mrs. Hopewell allows it due to her daughter having a wooden leg due to a tragic accident when Hulga was younger. One day, a bible salesman by the name of Manley Pointer drops by and instead of selling a bible he gets a date with Hulga. Although not entirely impressed by Manley, Hulga begins to let her guard down with him. Manley persuades Hulga to take off her wooden leg and show him where her “wooden leg joins in”. This is significant because Hulga had not taken her wooden leg off for anyone. This moment is described as Hulga “surrendering to him completely” and “like losing her own life and finding it again, miraculously, in his” (O’Connor 456-457). After Hulga removes her leg, Manley’s true identity becomes known. He refuses to return Hulga’s leg to her and reveals to her the inside of his bible, which is hollow and “contained a pocket flask of whiskey, a pack of cards, and a small blue box with printing on it (O’Connor 457).” Mrs. Hopewell and her employee, Mrs. Freeman watch Manley Pointer as he leaves the barn. Mrs. Freeman captures the theme of the story in her last
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.
Tennessee Williams was one of the most important playwrights in the American literature. He is famous for works such as “The Glass Menagerie” (1944), “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1947) or “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)”. As John S. Bak claims: “Streetcar remains the most intriguing and the most frequently analyzed of Williams’ plays.” In the lines that follow I am going to analyze how the identity of Blanche DuBois, the female character of his play, “A Streetcar Named Desire”, is shaped.
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 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’ 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.
The Tension Between Reality and Fantasy in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things
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 the play, “The Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller, the main character Willy is portrayed as a tragic hero as he lives his life with a warped perception of the American dream leading to his downfall. He can be seen favoring reputation over hard work, an ideal that costs him a great deal throughout the story. His many failed attempts to achieve the American dream land him in self-destructive patterns and blindness to reality. Charley and Bernard serve as an example of the true American dream. The audience as well as Willy himself often compares the characters with the Loman family. The true tragedy of the play comes at the end, when Willy finally sees the reality of his life and ultimately commits suicide. Within almost everything that takes place in the play, “The Death of a Salesman”. The shadow of the American dream is found looming over the characters and the world around them. Everyone strives to attain it, but if someone like Willy Loman goes after it the wrong way, tragedy may
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.
Relationships in A Streetcar Named Desire In many modern day relationships between a man and a woman, there is usually a controlling figure that is dominant over the other. It may be women over men, men over women, or in what the true definition of a marriage is an equal partnership. In the play A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, Stanley is clearly the more dominant figure over Stella.
Like countless characters in a play, Willy struggles to find who he is. Willy’s expectations for his sons and The Woman become too high for him to handle. Under the pressure to succeed in business, the appearance of things is always more important than the reality, including Willy’s death. The internal and external conflicts aid in developing the character Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.
In Death of a Salesman Willy Loman is a traveling salesman whose life is centered around his job. Willy easily conforms to societal stereotypes and pressure in society. Willy questions whether his values of happiness and success are possible by his hard work. Willy’s goal to adapt and succeed in his society along with his fear of failure causes him to question the reality of the American Dream, helping the reader understand the focus of the play.
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is a play about a woman named Blanche Dubois who is in misplaced circumstances. Her life is lived through fantasies, the remembrance of her lost husband and the resentment that she feels for her brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski. Various moral and ethical lessons arise in this play such as: Lying ultimately gets you nowhere, Abuse is never good, Treat people how you want to be treated, Stay true to yourself and Don’t judge a book by its cover.
In Death of a Salesman written by Arthur Miller we are presented with a Modern tragedy as exhibited by the Loman Family. The family patriarch and character, Willy Loman disillusionally believes that he is a top salesperson and an extremely successful businessman. Throughout his life he constructs elaborate fantasies to deny his repeated failures to fulfill his desires and expectations for himself and that of his children. These self-deceptions and the final self-realization of the truth lead to Willy’s eventual downfall and subsequent death caused by suicide. The central tragedy in Death of a Salesman is exemplified by the central character and father figure Willy Loman. His weakness of personality, self-destructive pride and disillusioned vision of reality is what ultimately causes him to not realize until the very end the truth about his life. All his hopes for the future and his wishes he had in the past have not been fulfilled. So he tries to build up a kind of dream world in which his sons are popular and successful business-men. But it is just an illusion he lives in. Even in the final scene of the play which takes place at the cemetery, Willy’s dreams of "being well liked and popular" and of having "real friends" were nothing more than a lie or an illusion. Willy′s sons don′t pay any respect to him and even Linda, his "loving and admiring" wife, feels relieved and free after his death.
Willy Loman’s tragic flow leads him to purse the idea that reputation in society has more relevancies in life than knowledge and education to survive in the business. His grand error of wanting recognition drove him crazy and insane and lead to his tragic death. Willy’s hubris makes him feel extremely proud of what he has, when in reality he has no satisfaction with anything in his life. Willy Loman’s sons did not reach his expectations, as a father but he still continued to brag about Biff and Happy in front of Bernard. Willy Loman caused the reader to empathize with him because before his tragic death he did everything he could for his family. Empathy, Hubris , and Willy Loman’s tragic flow all lead him to his death that distend for him the beginning.