Character Analysis of Blanche Through Text and Symbolism in A Streetcar Named Desire
Tennessee Williams was once quoted as saying "Symbols are nothing but the natural speech of drama...the purest language of plays" (Adler 30). This is clearly evident in A Streetcar Named Desire, one of Williams's many plays. In analyzing the main character of the story, Blanche DuBois, it is crucial to use both the literal text as well as the symbols of the story to get a complete and thorough understanding of her.
Before one can understand Blanche's character, one must understand the reason why she moved to New Orleans and joined her sister, Stella, and brother-in-law, Stanley. By analyzing the symbolism in the first scene, one can understand what prompted Blanche to move. Her appearance in the first scene "suggests a moth" (Williams 96). In literature, a moth represents the soul. So it is possible to see her entire voyage as the journey of her soul (Quirino 63). Later in the same scene she describes her voyage: "They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at Elysian Fields" (Quirino 63). Taken literally this does not seem to add much to the story. However, if one investigates Blanche's past, one can truly understand what this quotation symbolizes. Blanche left her home to join her sister, because her life was a miserable wreck in her former place of residence. She admits, at one point in the story, that "after the death of Allan (her husband) intimacies with strangers was all I seemed able to fill my empty heart with" (Williams 178). She had sexual relations with anyone who would agree to it. This is the first step in her voyage-"Desire". She ...
... middle of paper ...
...n. Boston: Twayne, 1990.
Corrigan, Mary Ann. “Memory, Dream, and Myth in the Plays of Tennessee Williams.” Dialogue in American Drama.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1971.
Engle, Paul. "A Locomotive Named Reality," The New Republic, CXXXII (Jan. 24, 1955), 26, 27.
Falk, Signi. Tennessee Williams. Grosset & Dunlap, Inc. New York, 1961.
Jackson, Esther M. The Broken World of Tennessee Williams. Madison and Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin, 1965.
Quirino, Leonard. “The Cards Indicate a Voyage on A Streetcar Named Desire.” Modern Critical Interpretations:
A Streetcar Named Desire. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1988.
Vowles, Richard B. "Tennessee Williams: The World of His Imagery," Tulane Drama Review, III (Dec., 1958), 51-56.
Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. New York: Viking Penguin, 1976.
Masson, Davis. Essays Biographical and Critical: Chiefly on English Poets. La Vergne, Tennessee: Lightning Source, Inc., 2007.
In the game of life man is given the options to bluff, raise, or fold. He is dealt a hand created by the consequences of his choices or by outside forces beyond his control. It is a never ending cycle: choices made create more choices. Using diverse, complex characters simmering with passion and often a contradiction within themselves, Tennessee Williams examines the link of past and present created by man's choices in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."
Mood, John J. “The Structure of A Streetcar Named Desire.” Ball State University Forum 14 (1973): 9-10. Rpt. in Drama for Students. Eds. David Galens and Lynn M. Spampinato. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1998. 294-96. Print.
Williams, Tennessee. “A Streetcar Named Desire”. The Theater of Tennessee Williams. Vol. I. New York: New Directions, 1971.
...erpretations of A Streetcar Named Desire: a Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Jordan Y. Miller. New
Spoto, Donald. The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams. Boston: Little, Brown and Co.,1985
Jackson, Esther Merle. The Broken World of Tennessee Williams. Madison: & of Wisconsin P, 1965.
The characters in “A Streetcar Named Desire”, most notably Blanche, demonstrates the quality of “being misplaced” and “being torn away from out chosen image of what and who we are” throughout the entirety of the play.
Rusinko, Susan. “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Magill’s Survey of American Literature. Ed. Steven G. Kellman. rev. ed. Vol.6. Pasadena, Ca.: Salem Press, Inc., 2007. 2734-2739. Print.
After two world wars, the balance of power between the genders in America had completely shifted. Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire is a harsh, yet powerful play that exposes the reality of the gender struggle. Williams illustrates society’s changing attitudes towards masculinity and femininity through his eloquent use of dramatic devices such as characterization, dialogue, setting, symbolism, and foreshadowing.
In Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire, main character Blanche Dubois to begin with seems to be a nearly perfect model of a classy woman whose social interaction, life and behavior are based upon her sophistication. The play revolves around her, therefore the main theme of drama concerns her directly. In Blanche is seen the misfortune of a person caught between two worlds-the world of the past and the world of the present-unwilling to let go of the past and unable, because of her character, to come to any sort of terms with the present.
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. ...
Cyber crime has become an important concern for not only the business firms, government, law enforcement agencies but also for the common people because these kinds of issues are related to the consumer’s day-to-day activity (Polivanyuk, 2005). Due to these types of crimes, consumer’s money, children, business organization’s integrity, consumer and company’s privacy, etc. are in danger.
Different authors have reviewed the cyber terrorism from different angles. Most of them have focused on the aims and objectives which terrorist wants to accomplish through cyber warfare. Moreover they have stressed over the need to the measures taken to combat cyber-attacks by terrorists.
Cybercrime is a global issue plaguing the world. The dictionary defines cybercrime as “crime conducted via the Internet or some other computer network”(Merriam-Webster). The definition remains very broad because the word “cyber” is defined as “relating to the culture of computers, information technology, and virtual reality.” Due to the growing number of people gaining access to the internet, rapid development of technology, and the globalization of the world, more of the world population is becoming susceptible to involvement in cybercrime – whether it be as a victim or a criminal. Cybercrime involves different levels of the world on both the victim and criminal side from an individual citizen, to small groups, businesses, and the government, to the countries of the world. There are different groups from law enforcement agencies to the U.S. Secret Service, that are attempting to combat the problem through cooperation and preemptive efforts. If these groups combined with the public to protect themselves and the country from criminals that commit cybercrime, the nation’s network and technology servers would be much safer for technology users. Clearly, cybercrime is a problem because it puts internet users at risk of being taken advantage of or harmed.