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Summary of a streetcar named desire
Streetcar named desire analysis the image
Streetcar named desire analysis the image
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Character of Blanche in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire One of the best-known plays of our time, Tennessee Williams’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” tells the story of fading Southern belle Blanche DuBois and her struggles during the South’s post-war changes. Although the play is widely remembered due to its 1951 film version and Marlon Brando’s famous bare-chested cry of “Stella!,” it is also a story of a changing South containing characters struggling with the loss of aristocracy to the new American immigrant, the fallout of chivalry to a new mindset of sex and desire, and a woman grasping desperately at the last bit of fantasy she can muster. Throughout “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Williams uses Blanche as a way to critique Southern “progress” by using her as a symbol for a dark, underlying existence. When fading Southern belle Blanche Dubois first arrives at her sister Stella’s apartment, she is already internally dealing with the struggle between desire and gentility. The end of the play is foreshadowed early on as Blanche states, “They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at Elysian Fields” (15). This statement serves as a metaphor for Blanche’s life as the mentions of desire, cemeteries, and the Elysian Fields (which symbolize the land of the dead in Greek mythology) describe how her sexual desire serves as the catalyst for her social death and expulsion. Blanche’s vanity and dependence on men also culminate as the play nears its end, as she is taken away from the fantasy she so desperately clings to and dragged into a new world of reality and a New South. Blanche’s struggle with fantasy and reality serves as on... ... middle of paper ... ... in everyone’s lives. This statement holds true for progress as well; without fantasy and dreams there would be no progress. After all, progress is the product of someone’s fantasy- an idea that was thought up on a whim. Like Blanche though, progress often has an underlying existence that is very dark. Not all progress is good and Blanche symbolizes this. Williams’s comparisons between Blanche and progress serve to show how progress can be a force that precipitates each individual’s desperate choices; that is, their ability to throw ideas, love, etc. out into the world in the hopes of moving forward. By unveiling a theme that is still pertinent today, “A Streetcar Named Desire” makes its mark as a piece of classic literature, which will be read for generations to come. Works Cited Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. New York: Signet Printing, 1980.
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.
In 'A Streetcar Named Desire' we focus on three main characters. One of these characters is a lady called Blanche. As the play progresses, we gradually get to know more about Blanche and the type of person she really is in contrast to the type of person that she would like everybody else to think she is. Using four main mediums, symbolism and imagery, Blanche's action when by herself, Blanche's past and her dialogue with others such as Mitch, Stanley and the paperboy, we can draw a number of conclusions about Blanche until the end of Scene Five. Using the fore mentioned mediums we can deter that Blanche is deceptive, egotistical and seductive.
6). Williams’s sister Rose is the real-life parallel of Blanche – Blanche’s illusions about life mirror Rose’s after her forced lobotomy*. However, unlike Rose Blanche is presented as knwing that she is “on the verge of - lunacy” (p.7). Similarly, Williams declared that after the events of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, Blanche left the asylum and lived a fulfilling life with a young gentleman – he was perhaps deluding himself, pushing his hopes for Rose onto Blanche, the fictional character believed to have been inspired by his
Throughout Tennessee Williams’s play “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Blanche Dubois exemplified several tragic flaws. She suffered from her haunting past; her inability to overcome; her desire to be someone else; and from the cruel, animalistic treatment she received from Stanley. Sadly, her sister Stella also played a role in her downfall. All of these factors ultimately led to Blanche’s tragic breakdown in the end. Blanche could not accept her past and overcome it.
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.
During scene one, the audience is introduced to Blanche as Stella's sister, who is going to stay with her for a while. Blanch tries her best to act normal and hide her emotion from her sister, but breaks down at the end of scene one explaining to Stella how their old home, the Belle Reve, was "lost." It is inferred that the home had to be sold to cover the massive funeral expenses due to the many deaths of members of the Dubois family. As Blanche whines to her sister, "All of those deaths! The parade to the graveyard! Father, mother! Margaret, that dreadful way!" (21). The audience sees this poor aging woman, who has lost so many close to her, and now her home where she grew up. How could anyone look at her, and not feel the pain and suffering that she has to deal with by herself? Williams wants the audience to see what this woman has been through and why she is acting the way she is. Blanche's first love was also taken from her. It seems that everyone she loves is dead except for her sister. Death plays a crucial role in Blanche's depression and other mental irregularities. While these circumstances are probably enough for the audience to feel sympathy for Blanche, Williams takes it a step further when we see Blanche's...
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.
First she is introduced as a symbol of innocence and chastity.4 She is aristocratic and intelligent, and sensitive and fragile at the same time, also beautiful and this delicate beauty has a moth-like appearance. But these positive characteristics are overshadowed by the fact that Blanche arrives to Elysian Fields, which is a poor section of New Orleans, on two streetcars, Desire and Cemeteries. These misterious expressions, which can be considered to be the main symbols of the play, suggest that something is is not clear around Blanhe or that something wrong will happen towards the end. Elysian Fields symbolizes paradise beyond death from ancient lore,3 Desire expresses Blanche's desire to be loved and Cemeteries represents her fear of death.4
This statement also emphasises much of Blanche’s own views on sorrow and explains how it has affected her life since she has made the comment from personal experience. To conclude, Tennessee Williams’ dramatic use of death and dying is an overarching theme in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire,’ from which everything about Blanche’s character has formed from. Without the death of Allan, Blanche would not have resorted to prostitution and the brief affairs with strangers, also the deaths of her family have driven Blanche to Stella’s where she is “not wanted” and “ashamed to be”. Therefore these dramatic deaths have lead to the past which comes back to haunt
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.
The first principle character in this play is Blanche DuBois. She is a neurotic nymphomaniac that is on her way to meet her younger sister Stella in the Elysian Fields. Blanche takes two 2 streetcars, one named Desire, the other Cemeteries to get to her little sisters dwelling. Blanche, Stella and Stanley all desire something in this drama. Blanche desired a world without pain, without suffering, in order to stop the mental distress that she had already obtained. She desires a fairy tale story about a rich man coming and sweeping her off her feet and they ride away on a beautiful oceanic voyage. The most interesting part of Blanche is that through her unstable thinking she has come to believe the things she imagines. Her flashy sense of style and imagination hide the truly tragic story about her past. Blanche lost Belle Reve but, moreover, she lost the ones she loved in the battle. The horror lied not only in the many funerals but also in the silence and the constant mourning after. One cant imagine how it must feel to lose the ones they love and hold dear but to stay afterwards and mourn the loss of the many is unbearable. Blanche has had a streak of horrible luck. Her husband killing himself after she exposed her knowledge about his homosexuality, her advances on young men that led to her exile and finally her alcoholism that drew her life to pieces contemplated this sorrow that we could not help but feel for Blanche throughout the drama. Blanche’s desire to escape from this situation is fulfilled when she is taken away to the insane asylum. There she will have peace when in the real world she only faced pain.
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.
Blanche uses her fantasies as a shield; and her desires as her motivation to survive. Her fading beauty being her only asset and chance of finding stability. Stella’s relationship with Stanley also emphasis the theme Williams created in this book. They’re only bond is physical desire and nothing at all intellectual or deep rooted. Tennessee Williams exemplifies that their relationship which only springs from desire doesn’t make it any weaker. He also creates a social dichotomy of the relationship between death and desire.