Comparing Streetcar Named Desire And Cat On A Hot Tin Roof By Tennessee Williams

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Throughout Tennessee Williams’s life, his struggle with gender identity and sexuality altered his perception of others claiming “people are complex.” Williams’s plays reflect his own life by creating characters who are neither good nor bad but have a certain complexity that baffles the audience. These intricate characters, like Williams, struggle with his/her own human nature and are coaxed by the temptations of immoral desires. In Tennessee Williams’s two plays, Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Williams develops the significance of the two titles by generating themes such as desire, mendacity, and sexuality.
Williams constructs the title Streetcar Named Desire by directly using the themes established through his personal conflict. The metaphor …show more content…

Stella is also a character driven by desire. Her inability to leave Stanley, though he is abusive and irrational, is haunting. She exclaims, “He smashed all the lightbulbs with the heel of my slipper.” Blanche questions Stella, “And you let him? Didn’t run, didn’t scream?” Stella replies, “Actually, I was sorta thrilled by it.” Bewildered Blanche, appalled by Stella’s willingness to stay with a brute like Stanley, hypocritically judges Stella. Blanche and Stella both rely on the desire of sex and a relationship to feel wanted and important. In Stella and Stanley’s home in Elysian Fields, Stella is blinded by her sexual appeal and desire of Stanley’s senseless harsh and abusive actions, and continues to live in her artificial utopia. Blanche uses sexual relationships to mend her damaged heart and sanity, along with creating a

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