Conflict Between Blanche And Stanley In A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams 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. 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. Blanche who had been caring for a generation of dying relatives at Belle Reve has been forced to sell the family plantation. Blanche is a great deal less realistic than Stanley and lives in illusions which bring upon her downfall. Conflict first arises when Blanche arrives at the Kowalski household and Stanley's authority over his home is questioned. Stanley has always had authority and control of his home and also his wife Stella. When Blanche arrives he feels that he is being invaded and doesn't agree with it. His "rat race" style of life doesn't match with Blanches but has somehow converted Stella. One of the main themes about conflict is that Stanley and Blanche are in a battle to win Stella and neither of them will give her up. A particularly evident section of conflict in the play is over Belle Reve and Stanley's "Napoleonic code". Blanche has told the Kowalski's that she had lost Belle Reve but without proof suspicions arrive with Stanley "well, what in the hell was it then, give away? To charity?" Stella doesn't take the fact that Blanche has no papers regarding Belle Reve as meaningful as Stanley does. Stanley from a relatively poor background compared to Stella and Blanches Belle Reve plantation and now would appreciate a slice of their assets and speaks about the Napoleonic code meaning that everything that his wife owns, or part owns is also his. After riffling through Blanches belongings for information Stanley subtlety confronts her with "it looks like you raided some stylish shops in Paris." The audience can sense that Williams has intended Stanley to question Blanche and for her to simply return his remarks with what seem like legitimate reasons "Why, those were a tribute from an admirer of mine." The conflict can only be increased because Stanley has not yet been able to dismantle Blanche and find the truth. The conflict between Stanley and Stella climaxes in scene ten. In this scene Stanley openly takes Blanche apart piece by piece he begins with unenthusiastic comments such as "Swine huh?
In this passage, Williams’ emphasises the nature of Blanche’s demise through the contrapuntal mode of the scene juxtaposing Blanche’s bathing with Stanley and Stella’s conversation. Williams wrote in a letter to Elia Kazan, who was to direct the film production of the play, that ‘It is a thing (misunderstanding) not a person (Stanley) that destroys (Blanche) in the ends’. This passage is significant as it shows the extent of Stanley’s misunderstanding of Blanche and his stubbornness to ascertain his condemnations to Stella. Furthermore, the use of colloquial lexis shows the true feebleness of Stanley’s claim because his judicial façade is diminished and shows the dangerous influence of claims as he sways Mitch away from Blanche. Stella’s character
Blanche, a fading beauty, uses her sugary charm and soft southern ways to attract men. In comparison, Stanley "sizes women up at a glance, with sexual classifications" to "determine the way he smiles at them" (Williams, Street 29). Course and deliberately aggressive, he is a "survivor of the stone age" (Williams, Street 72). Despite their differences, they both possess a raw sensuality. In their first confrontation, Blanche's thick display of charm angers and attracts Stanley.
Stanley oftenly abuses Stella whenever he is drunk. One night, Stanley brings his friends over for a poker night. Mitch leaves the table in order to talk to Blanche. Stanley begins to get furious since Mitch is no longer playing. As more and more interruptions keep occurring, Stanley is furious and breaks the radio Blanche and Mitch were using. Stella then calls Stanley an animal. “He advances and disappears. There is a sound of a blow. Stella cries out.”(57) Stanley is usually abusive when he's either drunk or frustrated. After Stanley strikes her, Stella leaves the house and goes to her neighbors house. Blanche follows her sister upstairs to support Stella so she does not feel alone. Stanley then calms down and calls for Stella to come back. She returns and falls into Stanley's arms. Stella is very loyal to Stanley, she stays with him because he is her husband and does not want to change that. This is why she ignores her sister's pleas. Stanleys actions prove to the reader that he is an abusive husband to Stella and that Stella tolerates
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.
The scene begins with Stanley arguing or at the very least speaking with little respect for Stella. He consistently uses a sarcastic tone (“So that’s the deal-huh? Sister Blanche cannot be annoyed” and “Well isn’t that just dandy!”) and refuses to let the subject of the Belle-Rue go, even though Stella makes it clear that it is not a subject that is ready to be talked about.
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.
This gradual fall and loss of her sense of reality is truly tragic. Blanche is a person largely driven by the part of her that wants to be liked and be accepted. She cares greatly about how she is viewed and how she looks which is seen throughout the play. Even at the end when she’s living almost completely in the imaginations of her mind she asks Stella and Eunice how she looks before being taken away to an insane asylum. Tennessee Williams, the author of the play, uses all the conflict between Blanche and others, specifically Stanley, to show that fantasy is unable to overcome reality. Stanley and Blanche are both the epitomes of fantasy and reality. Stanley is a man focused on sexual drive, work, and fighting. He is exhibited as animalistic and strongly driven by his desires which is shown when he says, “Be comfortable. That's my motto up where I come from.” Stanley loves and searches after reality which is why he is so set on breaking down the facade he sees in Blanche. Blanche on the other hand is running from her reality and her past. Her fantasy of being high class and chaste is the exact opposite of her reality which is why she wants a life like that so badly. She wants marriage and stability, two things she was jealous of Stella having after arriving in New Orleans. Her fantasy she was building in her new life is shattered when Stanley is able to learn of her past and bring reality crashing down on her. Williams
The essential conflict of the story is between Blanche, and her brother in-law Stanley. Stanley investigates Blanche’s life to find the truth of her promiscuity, ruining her relationships with Stella, and her possible future husband Mitch, which successfully obtain his goal of getting Blanche out of his house. Blanche attempts to convince Stella that she should leave Stanley because she witnessed a fight between the two. Despite these instances, there is an essence of sexual tension between the two, leading to a suspected rape scene in which one of their arguments ends with Stanley leading Blanche to the bed. Branching from that, Stella has an inner conflict because she does not know whether to side with her husband or her sister in each situation. Blanche and Mitch ha...
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...
... of this reading, Stanley violates all rights of Blanche. As Blanche becomes delusional and slips into a psychiatric personality, she is okay hoping that Stanley will comfort and rescue her. Instead, “She moans. The bottle-top falls. She sinks to her knees: He picks up her inert figure and carries her to the bed. The hot trumpet and drums from the Four Deuces sound loudly” (1837). Stanley has tampered with Blanche’s wishes and rapes her. Through this statement it seems like Blanche has lost all faith in which she was and has let Stanley conquer her with his aggressive dominance.
...d that a majority of blanches stories were a lie. Stanley and blanches relationship mimicked that of Napoleon and snowball in which napoleon felt threatened by snowballs presence and found the only way to maintain control was to exile him. Blanches inability to accept Stanley’s superiority is what leads Stanley to taking irrational measures and raping her. Stanley’s act mixed with the guilt of her lost love ultimately leads up to her mental breakdown which renders her in a state in which she must be institutionalized. In the end it would be Stanley’s behavior that would destroy Blanche and leave Stella questioning her love for him. Stanley had turned Stella against her own sister, abandoning blood in seek a better life with Stanley. In my opinion that is far more detrimental to there well beings than simply doing hard labour on a farm regardless of who’s running it.
Throughout the play there are numerous examples of the power he possesses of her. Williams portrays Stella as a little girl who lives in Stanley’s world. She does what he wants, takes his abuse, yet still loves him. Situations like these may have occurred in the 1950’s and lasted, but in today’s time this would only end up in a quick divorce. The first scene of the play (pg. 14) Stanley has just thrown a piece of meat up to Stella as he turns the corner heading for the bowling ally.
In A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams uses Blanche and Stanley to point out the different features of both periods, old and new. At the end of the play when Stella chooses to be believe Stanley over her sister Blanche. It basically means that New South wins in the end. Blanche who represents the Old South’s rich, beautiful, southern belle is sort of cast out of society. Stella on the other hand was able to adapt to the social evolution of the south and mix with Stanley to create a new life.
A Streetcar Named Desire is a play founded on the premise of conflicting cultures. Blanche and Stanley, the main antagonists of the play, have been brought up to harbour and preserve extremely disparate notions, to such an extent that their incompatibility becomes a recurring theme within the story. Indeed, their differing values and principles becomes the ultimate cause of antagonism, as it is their conflicting views that fuels the tension already brewing within the Kowalski household. Blanche, a woman disillusioned with the passing of youth and the dejection that loneliness inflicts upon its unwilling victims, breezes into her sister's modest home with the air and grace of a woman imbued with insecurity and abandonment. Her disapproval, concerning Stella's state of residence, is contrived in the face of a culture that disagrees with the old-fashioned principles of the southern plantations, a place that socialised Blanche to behave with the superior demeanour of a woman brain-washed into right-wing conservatism. Incomparably, she represents the old-world of the south, whilst Stanley is the face of a technology driven, machine fuelled, urbanised new-world that is erected on the foundations of immigration and cultural diversity. New Orleans provides such a setting for the play, emphasising the bygone attitude of Blanche whose refusal to part with the archaic morals of her past simply reiterates her lack of social awareness. In stark contrast Stanley epitomises the urban grit of modern society, revealed by his poker nights, primitive tendencies and resentment towards Blanche. ...
[More laughter and shouts of parting come from the men. Stanley throws the screen door of the kitchen open and comes in. He is of medium height, about five feet eight or nine, and strongly, compactly built. Animal joy in his being is implicit in all his movements and attitudes. Since earliest manhood the center of his life has been pleasure with women, the giving and taking of it, not with weak indulgence, dependency, but with the power and pride of a richly feathered male bird among hens. Branching out from this complete and satisfying center are all the auxiliary channels of his life, such as his heartiness with men, his appreciation of rough humor, his love of good drink and food and games, his car, his radio, everything that is his, that bears his emblem of the gaudy seed-bearer. He sizes women up at a glance, with sexual classifications, crude images flashing into his mind and determining the way he smiles at them.] Blanche is uncomfortable and draws involuntarily back from his stare. She is keenly aware of his dominant position and reacts as women of the day did. Through all of this he is the leader of his group and in full control of his household. Any opposition to his leadership is quickly put down by physical force. He beats his wife, fights his friends and eventually humiliates Blanche by raping her.