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Symbolism in the streetcar named desire
Message about desire in a streetcar named desire
A streetcar named desire and feminist theory
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Tennessee Williams, an American theater writer, has quickly made a great play A Streetcar Named Desire which reflect the society in 1950s as both social and art work, all included references to elements of his life such as mental instability and . Williams’s character Blanche DuBois was a feeble lady who loves fantasy and dependence on man. According to the play, Blanche “hurls” her continually denied love out into the world, only to have that love revisit her in the form of suffering(1). Today we find ourselves in a very different world than the people who lived in 1950s. It should also be admitted that the views of amphoteric relationship are obviously z
Sometimes we do get some traditional women who really love to stay at home, give a birth and take care of the whole family. They have an image of this condition in their mind, or they had been told when they were young and have a sort of irrational, passionate love for it. Sometimes people approach it in that way, and in a way it holds that aura around itself in our current culture and in the history of the play in this period that Williams wrote in A Streetcar Named Desire. Usually, people would like to reserve whatever curiosity they have about desire, but in a way, Williams was flipped the usual practice; he told about human desire, especially sexuality in his work. It has such a special place in the imagination of our culture.
The point was that Williams is trying to imagine an autonomous work of art that has a deep thinking to it, that is in some sense violence or personified, and this sexual desire to make the tragic something living, introduces to the world of the tragic the problem of death. Tennessee William explores a conflict through between desire and death. There ...
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...the common position of most women of the postwar years. So, in that relation, the root of tragedy the women narrow and limited view, they don't believe in themselves.
Works Cited
1. Williams, Tennessee. "A Streetcar Named Desire" a New Directions Book, copyright 1947.
2. KLEB, William. “Marginalia: Streetcar, Williams, and Foucault.” in Philip C. KOLIN (ed.),
Confronting Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993, 27-43.
3. Kernodle, George R. "The Theater Of Exaltation: Modern Tragedy And Poetic Drama." Kernodle, George R. Invitation to the Theatre. New Yory: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1967. 217-223.
4. Tragicomic Transit Authority.” Tennessee Williams: A Tribute. Ed. Jac Tharpe. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1977. 116-125.
5. Berkman, Leonard. "The Tragic Downfall of Blanche DuBois." Modern Drama 10.2., 1967. 249-257.
In Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams uses the suicide of Blanche's husband to illuminate Blanche's insecurities and immoral behavior. When something terrible happens to someone, it often reveals who he or she truly is. Blanche falls victim to this behavior, and she fails to face her demons. This displays how the play links a character’s illogical choices and their inner struggles.
At first glance, the reader could not imagine a more incompatible and diverse pair than Blanche DuBois and Fernie Mae Rosen, two women from very contrasting backgrounds and racial standings. However, these two women share similar passions and mental disorders, showing both their vulnerability to the world and mutual personal energies. Both weave an alternate reality inside their psyches that deceive them into believing that life is not worthwhile, and yet both appear to live life to various sexual and emotional extremes. Such compatibility shows the correlation in their mutual lifestyles despite incongruous backgrounds. Men always seem to be at the root of their problems, despite their clear and discernible negative reactions to the opposite sex. The examples of a virginal aura that eclipses their sexual promiscuity, their mutual hatred for the world and the people that surround them, and their transformation from passion into real madness show the reader that they have more in common than one would think.
Stanton, Stephen. "Introduction." Tennessee Williams: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey : Prentice-Hall, 1977. 1-16.
Olive, David. "Possibilities of Performance: New Ways of Teaching Dramatic Literature." Links & Letters 2 (1995): 9-17. UAB Digital Repository of Documents. Web. 30 Mar. 2012.
The human mind is fragile, unpredictable and unreliable. Simultaneously, the human mind is a master of self-defense against emotionally shaking experiences that one might live through. During the first half of the 20th century, mental illness was not a subject widely spoken about and drugs, electro-convulsive therapy, and surgery were used as treatments for persistent illnesses of the mind (PBS “Timeline: Treatments (...)”). This is the world Tennessee Williams grew up in, with a three year older sister who developed a mental illness herself (Hoare). In 1947, Tennessee Williams broke through the barrier of fame with his well known play A Streetcar Named Desire: the story about the emotional demise of the fragile, yet determined, southern belle Blanche DuBois and her visit to her sister Stella in New Orleans. Williams himself said that his plays are “pleas for the understanding of delicate people” (Rocamora): they contain a desperation for sensitivity, tenderness and humaneness that can rarely be found other plays (Maupin). Blanche DuBois is Tennessee Williams’ representation of the “delicate people”, as she battles psychological illness through fear, guilt and compensation for the surrounding people and relations in the play.
In A Streetcar named Desire, Tennessee Williams presented to us the character of Blanche Dubois. She was the haggard and fragile southern beauty whose happiness was cruelly destroyed. She always avoided reality, and lived in her own imagination. As the play goes on, Blanches “instability grows along with her misfortune.” Her life ended in tragedy when she was put into a mental institution. Her brother in law’s cruelty combined with her fragile personality, left Blanche mentally detached from reality. Stanley Kowalski showed no remorse for his brutal actions, destroyed Blanches life and committed her to an insane asylum.
Gassner, John. “Theatre at the Crossroads.New York,” Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960. pp. 77-91, 218-231.
Too often people would rather hide a problem and pretend it does not exist rather than take responsibility and deal with it. In Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire the Kowalskis see Blanche Dubois as a problem and have her sent to an insane asylum. It is true that Blanche had many issues but the reason behind her incarceration was not to benefit her mental state but to project someone else’s dirty secret. While others may justify the actions of Blanche’s sister and brother-in-law, they are weaker than Blanche for refusing to deal with reality. Take a look into the life of Blanche Dubois and it will be evident that an insane asylum was the wrong place for her. From the loss of her loved ones and childhood home, to her career as a prostitute, and ending with her rape, there is no denying that Blanche Dubois just needed love and support from her family.
The arts stir emotion in audiences. Whether it is hate or humor, compassion or confusion, passion or pity, an artist's goal is to construct a particular feeling in an individual. Tennessee Williams is no different. In A Streetcar Named Desire, the audience is confronted with a blend of many unique emotions, perhaps the strongest being sympathy. Blanch Dubois is presented as the sympathetic character in Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire as she battles mental anguish, depression, failure and disaster.
A Streetcar Named Desire is an intricate web of complex themes and conflicted characters. Set in the pivotal years immediately following World War II, Tennessee Williams infuses Blanche and Stanley with the symbols of opposing class and differing attitudes towards sex and love, then steps back as the power struggle between them ensues. Yet there are no clear cut lines of good vs. evil, no character is neither completely good nor bad, because the main characters, (especially Blanche), are so torn by conflicting and contradictory desires and needs. As such, the play has no clear victor, everyone loses something, and this fact is what gives the play its tragic cast. In a larger sense, Blanche and Stanley, individual characters as well as symbols for opposing classes, historical periods, and ways of life, struggle and find a new balance of power, not because of ideological rights and wrongs, but as a matter of historical inevitability. Interestingly, Williams finalizes the resolution of this struggle on the most base level possible. In Scene Ten, Stanley subdues Blanche, and all that she stands for, in the same way men have been subduing women for centuries. Yet, though shocking, this is not out of keeping with the themes of the play for, in all matters of power, force is its ultimate manifestation. And Blanche is not completely unwilling, she has her own desires that draw her to Stanley, like a moth to the light, a light she avoids, even hates, yet yearns for.
Women were perceived as either being a housewife, a nurturer, or a person for company. They did not have the right to vote till later on, work, and if they had an opinion that a male do not agree with, women are considered “wicked”; not savvy, not prudent but wicked to the core. It is unfair, unethical, atrocious, but through it all there was one female who dared to challenge the mind of men and the notion that women can be more than what men perceive them as being. Her name is Margaret Fuller. The goals of Margaret Fuller were precise. Men should realize that women are not an epitome of a statue but human beings, just as men, women can achieve full adulthood and citizenship, but most vitally Margaret aimed to change the assumptions about
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.
Williams, Tennessee. “A Streetcar Named Desire.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. 11th ed. New York: Norton, 2013.1815-1881. Print.
Tennessee Williams’ psychodrama, A Streetcar Named Desire, explicates the benevolent yet intricate personality of Dubois Dubois, and dives into the uncontrollable tempest that she physically and psychologically battles. Dubois’ intense desire to reinstate a permanent and devoted relationship with someone into her life manipulates her behavior around people. Her psyche - as a result of the sheer nature of this ruling passion - eventually overflows causing repressed emotions, feelings, and impulses to be freely expressed. Throughout the play, Dubois goes on a rampage to find a new mate – she feels that she deserves another life partner, especially after the death of her first and former lover, Allan. She believes to repay herself by starting
Goldman, Michael. "'Romeo and Juiliet': The Meaning of the Theatrical Experience." Shakespeare and the Energies of Drama. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP. 1972. 33-44. Rpt.