The Unnecessary Decline of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire
Upon reviewing the drama, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, it would appear that the character of Blanche DuBois is worthy of closer inspection. With her previous occupation as a teacher of American literature and her former social status being that of a well-bred woman of the very traditional Old South, Blanche could be any human being transferring from one culture to another with customs far different from the ones being left behind. Even today it could happen that someone is suddenly confronted with a totally new and different value system with which he must learn to cope in order to be accepted into his new environment. That is the situation in which Blanche finds herself. After close inspection of the plot of A Streetcar Named Desire, it appears that the course of the play could quite easily have been turned from decline and tragedy to rescue and triumph for Blanche DuBois with only a few minor adjustments.
A streetcar named Desire brought Blanche to the last station of her decline. “Blanche's spine or leitmotif is `find Protection'; the tradition of the Old South says that it must be through another person... her problem has to do with her tradition... the thing about the tradition in the 19th century was that it worked then “(Donahue 30). But today Blanche can't feel safe within the bounds of the Old South traditions anymore. On the contrary “...it [tradition] makes Blanche feel alone, outside of her society. Left out, insecure, shaky” (Donahue 32).
In the exposition of the play, Blanche arrives in her new environment and does not feel the least bit comfortable when she sees how her sister lives. Blanche p...
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...n mind and body because a community is only as strong as its weakest link. Williams knew this and had a great desire to help those less fortunate than he. He tried to do this through his works, by calling attention to the problems that many people faced on a daily basis, thereby forcing his audiences to choose to either ignore the problems or to do something to bring about change.
Works Cited
Bloom, Herald (ed.). Tennessee Williams. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
Donahue, Francis. The Dramatic World of Tennessee Williams. New York: Frederic Ungar Publishing Co., 1964.
Hirsch, Foster. A Portrait of the Artist-The Plays of Tennessee Williams. London: Kennikat Press, 1979.
Londre, F.H. Tennessee Williams. New York: Frederic Ungar Publishing Co., 1979.
Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. Stuttgart: Phillip Reclam, 1988.
In Charles Darwin’s life he had helped make a significant advancement in the way mankind viewed the world. With his observations, he played a part in shifting the model of evolution into his peers’ minds. Darwin’s theory on natural selection impacted the areas of science and religion because it questioned and challenged the Bible; and anything that challenged the Bible in Darwin’s era was sure to create contention with the church. Members of the Church took offense to Darwin’s Origins of Species because it unswervingly contradicted the teachings of the book of Genesis in the Bible. (Zhao, 2009) Natural selection changed the way people thought. Where the Bible teaches that “all organisms have been in an unchanging state since the great flood, and that everything twas molded in God’s will.” (Zhao, 2009) Darwin’s geological journey to the Galapagos Islands is where he was first able to get the observations he needed to prove how various species change over t...
Or, as Mary Ann Corrigan later puts it [as does Judith J. Thompson, 38], the Blanche-Stanley struggle is purely an external dramatization of what is going on inside Blanche’s head: “the external events of the play, while actually occurring, serve as a metaphor for Blanche’s internal conflict” [Corrigan, 392]. Critics who share Sharp’s and Corrigan’s views feel that Streetcar is essentially a psychological drama about Blanche’s internal struggle with herself.”
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.
Suzan Harjo is a Native American rights activist, writer, lecturer, and poet from the Hodulgee Muskogee and Cheyenne tribes. She helped recover more than 1 million acres of stolen tribal lands and served as a liaison between the United States Congress and Native American tribes. Suzan acted as the main plaintiff in Harjo v. Pro Football, Inc., the successful lawsuit imploring the Washington Redskins to change their name. Harjo’s victory against the Redskins influenced several more football teams to change their offensive names.
Many authors like Aldous Huxley have come to state that “ignorance is bliss” in their own manners. In A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, this message is passed on down to the audience through the characterization of Blanche DuBois. Blanche is a character who had her fall from grace. Coming from a rich family, she lost all of her wealth; and, thus, came to live with her sister, Stella. However, mentally, she still lives in the past. In other words, she’s ignorant of the present. This ignorance comes to be the foundation of her character.
Darwin and Evolution are inextricably linked in the minds of most people who have had the opportunity to study them in basic biology. However, Darwin's theories of selection and survival of the fittest have been applied to moral, economic, political, and other cultural aspects of society. Dennett briefly touched on some of the political and social ramifications of Darwin's theories in the final chapter of Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Other philosophers and thinkers have also adapted Darwin's evolutionary ideas, in order to apply them in a societal or cultural context. One great example of this adaptation of the biological concept of evolution, is the appearance of Social Darwinism during the 19th century.
The theory of social darwinism was first introduced to the public[1] in “A Theory of Population, Deduced from the General Law of Animal Fertility”, an article by Herbert Spencer published in 1852. This work preceded the publishing of Darwin’s book by seven years, and “given the timing, it is curious that Darwin’s theory was not labeled ‘natural Spencerism’ instead of Spencer’s theory being labeled ‘social Darwinism.’”[2] Spencer’s article, though mainly focused on biology and the ways in which animal populations develop, does include an inkling of the social ideas he would later more fully examine. His main theory of population deals with survival of the fittest, a phrase he coins in this a...
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.
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”.
In conclusion, the story of Blanch Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire is a very sad and pitiful one. Williams stirs the audience's emotions and basically begs them to show Blanch sympathy. I also believe that many people feel as Blanche did, alone, worthless, yet trying desperately to cover their emotion, which reaches out to the viewers in a more personal way. There could not be a more rattling ending than to see old pitiful Blanch dragged off to a nut house, leaving the audience in the same mood Blanche herself would have been.
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.
Charles Darwin was a scientist from the United Kingdom who was a naturalist and geologist in the early 1800s. Although, he is best known for his role in the evolution theory. Darwin decided to take part in a five-year voyage in 1831, called the Beagle, to make naval charts of South America. At the beginning of the expedition Darwin was just a young graduate, at the age of twenty-two, with only eagerness to be able to be a part of the opportunity. He had no high expectations to find the rare discoveries that he had found during his time on land on the far off continent. By the end of the excursion, Darwin had made a name for himself as a geologist and fossil collector after his journal was published, later titled The Voyage of the Beagle. His writing got him a lot of attention from multiple scientists around the world.
Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire is one of the most popular plays in American history. The play contains this theme of Old South versus New South where old southern ideals and way of life clashes against newly formed ideals of the late 19th and early 20th century. The distinctions between the Old South’s emphasis on tradition, social class, and segregation versus the New South’s emphasis on hard work can be seen throughout the play. It is manifested in the main characters of the play. Blanche DuBois’s civilized and polished nature makes her a symbol of the Old South while Stanley Kowalski’s brutish, direct, and defying nature represents the New South. Tennessee Williams uses the characters of his play to present a picture of the social, gender role, and behavior distinctions that existed between the Old South versus the New South. Furthermore, the two settings provided in the play, Belle Reve and Elysian Fields can also be seen as different representations of the Old versus the New with the way both places are fundamentally different.
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.
...at evolutionary change was not just a myth; it was possible. This study opened the door for other species to be studied and see if they evolved over time and how much they have evolved. This helped Darwin see evolution by comparing the living animal species. Darwin also used his children as research in his theory of evolution. He studied his children to see how nature gave way to nurture (Rosenberger v2-3). He had ten children, so he was able to study all of them and compare the results he obtained to one another. Through this study he learned that some human behaviors were adaptive and other human behaviors were learned and shared by culture. In 1851, he lost one of his daughters, and was able to observe that some people are able to cope and others cannot. This opened the door to many more characteristics that were the heart of the principle in natural selection.