Southern Scapegoat: How Minority Classes Are Treated

The Southern Scapegoat: How Minority Classes are Treated Masculine dominance has been a lengthy affair within our society, from the period of women’s suffrage, to today, where unequal pay is a fundamental societal issue. Those who suffer from these unfair and unjust issues are the minority classes, including gays, lesbians, and women. Consequently, within the life and works of Tennessee Williams, a Pulitzer Prize renowned playwright and author, depicted hardships of the minority class through his plays, A Streetcar Named Desire, and The Glass Menagerie. In the attempt to depict parts of his own life and the struggles of the outvoted class, Williams portrays the Southern Belle, an anguished and vulnerable Southern woman, as the inferior class

In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche Dubois, a caring and helpful figure to her sister, is the cause of Stanley’s problems. She is the considered as an unnecessary complication within his marriage with Stella. Even though Blanche is trying to support her sister in pursuing a happy lifestyle, in Stanley’s mind, Blanche is portrayed as the leech who is stealing resources and happiness from the once “perfect” couple, even though her only intention is to care for her sister. Due to Blanche’s caring nature, Stanley diverts his frustration by verbally and physically abusing both sisters. The article, “Tennessee Williams and the Two StreetCars,”states that “Stanley raped Blanche, not to mention having apparently betrayed his wife on quite a lot of occasions. Stella refused to listen when Blanche tried to tell her about the rape and then contacted the mental hospital to have her sister committed.” (Thomieres 8). Blanche, in this case is the victim of the frustration and anger Stanley has been accumulating. His method of extermination was to use his masculine figure and dominate those who don’t favor his ideas, and in the end, Stanley got what he wanted

In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche is continuously punished for committing crimes of sleeping with multiple men while Stanley was a young hustler himself. From the start, she is insulted by Mitch, who breaks her vulnerable heart, her name as a prostitute imprinted within all of society, and is thrown out by her own sister. All these unjust and unfair issues were all caused by Stanley who himself, had slept with multiple women and commits acts of physical abuse on his pregnant wife. Even though they both had caused actions which were looked down upon, Blanche was persecuted by society and shunned away while Stanley, the cause of all this ruckus is living his life freely, without any societal judgement. Consequently, in “Tennessee Williams and the Two Streetcars” states, “Desire and death pursue the characters one generation after the other. Blanche has inherited a legacy from her ancestors whose main activities appear to have been their "epic fornications”. Even though Blanche was indulging in a pleasure all men and women act upon, she is extensively and unfairly blamed to the point that her ancestors were noted as prostitutes themselves. Furthermore, within A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Maggie is stripped from the affection husband gives to wife. She is blamed for sleeping with Stanley even though Stanley was the one to blame, wanting to pleasure from his best friends wife. Even