More handpicked essays just for you.
Explore social class in a streetcar named desire essay
Explore social class in a streetcar named desire essay
Explore social class in a streetcar named desire essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The author Tenesse Williams whom wrote "A Street Car Named Desire" uses colors to symbolize the characters in his story. The author also uses colors to symbolize certain objects in his story as well. The colors used for the two characters "Blanche" and "Stanley" in the story "A Street Car Named Desire" either fits the persons lifestyle, or contradicts their lifestyle. "Blanche Dubois" which we are told means white woods, her name reflects on the fact that she is always wearing the color white because she dresses as if she was rich to impress the men although she is poor and lives in the ghettos. "Stanley" who is is the second character in "A Street Car Named Desire" whom the author also uses the color blue to relate to Stanley's righteous character seen in the story. By using colors to symbolize characters, and objects he creates a better visual for the reader see in their own perception. …show more content…
The color white symbolizes pureness and purity, which Blanche does not live a pure nor clean lifestyle. The color white resembles a state of innocence which Blanche is living the total opposite. Instead Blanche lives a very sad life which evokes her to become an alcoholic, and to also partake in sexual promiscuity with different men in the story. Which does not at all comply with the fact she wears the color white so
Blanche’s immoral and illogical decisions all stem from her husband's suicide. When a tragedy happens in someone’s life, it shows the person’s true colors. Blanche’s true self was an alcoholic and sex addict, which is displayed when “She rushes about frantically, hiding the bottle in a closet, crouching at the mirror and dabbing her face with cologne and powder” (Williams 122). Although Blanche is an alcoholic, she tries to hide it from others. She is aware of her true self and tries to hide it within illusions. Blanche pretends to be proper and young with her fancy clothes and makeup but is only masking her true, broken self.
Symbolism is using a character or object to represent an idea. Hawthorne displayed much of it in his novel, The Scarlet Letter. He displays it in his characters and objects in the novel. He even symbolizes the book by calling it, “A tale of human frailty and sorrow.” Other displays of symbolism in The Scarlet Letter, are like, the rosebush, the scaffold, and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Symbolism can sometimes be hard to understand, or difficult to figure out what a character or object is symbolizing.
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.
According to Google, symbolism in literature is defined as the use of symbols to signify ideas and qualities by giving them symbolic meanings that are different from their literal sense. Symbolism can be seen throughout media and in many pieces of literature including To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. In the book, the symbol of the mockingbird represents the character Boo Radley, and how his story teaches people to not always believe what others have to say about someone without being able to prove it true for themselves.
During the late nineteen-forties, it was common for playwrights such as Tennessee Williams to use symbolism as an approach to convey personal thoughts, through the attitudes of the characters and the setting. Williams' actors have used symbolism to disguise the actuality of their thoughts and to accommodate the needs of their conservative audience. A Streetcar Named 'Desire' has a few complicated character traits and themes. Therefore, they have to be symbolised using figures or images to express abstract and mystical ideas, so that the viewers can remain clueless. Williams not only depicts a clear personality of the actors
Blanche represents a deep-seated attachment to the past.5 Her life is a lesson how tragic events events in the past can ruin a person's future. Her husband's death affects her the most.
Symbolism. Why is it important in a novel? Why do authors incorporate symbols into their writing? Symbolism aids the reader in understanding what the author wants to portray. In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird, she writes about the racism in a small town in Alabama named Maycomb set in the 1930’s and about two children growing up and learning that their town is not as perfect as they thought. The theme topic appearance versus reality helps to get a better understanding of the symbols used in the novel and that you should not judge something by their appearance, you should judge by the reality of what it is. “As Atticus once advised me to do, I tried to climb into Jem’s skin and walk around in it.” (Scout page 77) In her novel, there are many symbols throughout the narrative that relate to the theme topic appearance versus reality. Harper Lee writes symbols into her novel, such as the snowman, Mrs. Dubose’s Camellia flower and Dolphus Raymond’s Coca-Cola bottle to help reinforce the theme topic of appearance versus reality throughout the novel.
Symbolism is defined as the representation; treatment or interpretation of things as symbolic. In society and in particular, literature, symbolism is a prominent component that helps to illustrate a deeper meaning then perceived by the reader. Symbolism can be anything, a person, place or thing, used to portray something beyond itself. It is used to represent or foreshadow the conclusion of the story. In William Golding’s, Lord of the Flies symbolism of the main characters Ralph, Jack and Simon plays a very important role in helping to show how our society functions and the different types of personalities that exist. An examination of Simon as a symbol of good, Ralph as a symbol of the common man, and Jack as a symbol of evil, clearly illustrates that William Golding uses characters as a symbol of what is really happening in the outside world throughout the novel.
Symbolism is greatly used in the play to emphasize Blanche’s mental instability, this is most evidently found in the use of colors and shading. The first example of this is in both her name Blanche Dubois, which in French means white and her last name woods, this translates to ‘white woods’ and the fact that she dresses entirely in white upon her arrival. The color white symbolizes, purity, health and virginity, which in spite of the irony, this is the image she attempts to exhibit. This is her trying to appear new and fresh. There is noticeable symbolism that metaphorically taints this white purity, such of that in scene five when Blanche spills coke on her white dress. She frantically tries to remove it, she wishes to remove this so it doesn’t stain her. Like she sees how her past has. The fact that she has slept with so many men and this spill shows how she is in fact corrupt and stained with her past. This symbolism is an early suspicion to her insanity and promiscuous past which is only unraveled later in the play. We as such may not intentionally see this from the start. Only the illusory image, which she tries to create for herself, suggests the...
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.
The seven deadly sins are well established as being detrimental; nevertheless, humanity naturally gravitates towards the inhuman. The life of Blanche DuBois, the protagonist of Tennessee Williams’ play, A Streetcar Named Desire is derailed by lust: the lechery of her ancestors causes the loss of the family home, her husband’s lust leads to suicide, and her own sexuality forces her to leave her occupation and her hometown in disgrace. After taking the streetcars Desire and Cemeteries, Blanche seeks refuge from reality in the home of her sister Stella and her masculine and somewhat barbaric husband Stanley. Despite her attempts to start an unblemished life with a new persona and love interest, Mitch, Blanche’s dark past begins to resurface after
Why are colours important when trying to symbolize what is taking place in the mind of the setting and the characters of literature? Tennessee Williams have once said “ Symbols are nothing but the natural of drama the purest languages of play.” Tennessee William has exactly used symbolism and colour quite effectively in his play A Streetcar Named Desire. An impressive story about fading southern belle Blanche Dubois and her failure into insanity. A Streetcar Named Desire consists many symbolism and knowledgeable use of colour. This helps the audience to connect scenes and events to the themes and issues that Williams presents within the play, just as desire and death, and the conflict between the past and present of America. The significance of colours is a central theme in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire; the author uses colours to reflect states of mind, make further commentary on particular characters, and what sorts of things specific colours represent.
...es and thinks that her hopes will not be destroyed. Thirdly, Blanche thinks that strangers are the ones who will rescue her; instead they want her for sex. Fourthly, Blanche believes that the ones who love her are trying to imprison her and make her work like a maid imprisoned by them. Fifthly, Blanche’s superiority in social status was an obscure in her way of having a good social life. Last but not least, Blanche symbolizes the road she chose in life- desire and fantasy- which led her to her final downfall.
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 about 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 of her past. Blanche lost Belle Reve but, moreover, she lost the ones she loved in the battle. The horror lies not only in the many funerals but also in the silence and the constant mourning after.