Preview

A streetcar named desire

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1981 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A streetcar named desire
Research paper
A Conflict as a Poker Game In the early twentieth century, women were still dependent on men. It was difficult for a woman to have a job and be financially independent. In addition, at this time, women had to keep their virginity to have a chance to get married. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is placed in the picturesque French Quarter in New Orleans. The play starts when Blanche DuBois comes in New Orleans to visit her sister Stella after she lost the family plantation Belle-Reve because of money problems. She then meets her brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski, a World War II veteran. As soon as they meet each other, a mistrustful rivalry starts between them. A Streetcar Named Desire depicts the conflict between two opposing views as a poker game between Blanche and Stanley for control.
From the beginning of the play, Williams starts distinguishing Stanley and Blanche by their mentalities. In fact, Blanche has the Old South mentality. She grew up in a plantation where she learnt how to behave as an aristocrat whereas her brother-in-law is an industrial and a Polish immigrant representing the New South. Blanche is described as delicate and fragile whereas Stanley is rude and violent. Blanche lives in a world of illusion. She acts as a queen and wants the men to treat her like it. Unlike Blanche, Stanley lives in a rude world, a world where if a person are strong enough physically and mentally, he or she can succeed.
In addition, Williams opposes Stanley and Blanche by their description. First of all, he opposes their names. While Blanche means “white” in French and seems to represent innocence, Kowalski means “blacksmith” and represents the rudeness, the violence, and the primitive side of Stanley. Secondly, Williams opposes his main characters physically. Indeed, he describes Blanche when she arrives in New Orleans as “daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and earrings of pearl, white gloves and hat,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    A Streetcar Named Desire was based in the time it was written – New Orleans in 1947. The late 1940’s was a postwar era as the United States rose as a victorious superpower above the rest of the world. This era was also the beginning of the Baby Boom – a time of high marriage and birth rates in the country. There was a postwar surge in luxury with the end of rations and the emergence of better, cheaper cars and entertainment. Although there were many positive advances during the time, there was also the dark cloud of the Soviet Union as the Cold War was brewing and the atomic bomb was being threatened once again.…

    • 116 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A Streetcar named Desire is driven by the imagination of Blanche and the other nature. The handwriting in the amusement cloak from their loyalty by representation as if the events they way through didn’t occur or were not momentous. The consideration of mockery/fantasia vs. devotion seems to carry on the intention that these independence poverty to “sally” their earth. Escaping your fact and vigorous in a like globe will leaving you intricate to the stuff around you. In some suit, if you are muscular enough to restrain from the humor and illusions around you, you may termination up in the loyalty, inclination Mitch. Both Stella and Blanche found it flower in their liking to remain in a humor but if you abide in it too far-reaching it can take…

    • 132 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The primary noticeable difference between Stanley and Blanche are the worlds that they both come from. Blanche believes in an illusionary world of which the upper and lower class people are separated, education is valued, races are separated and purity is preserved. In contrast, Stanley comes from a patriarchal society, which is morally corrupt, sinful and amoral. In the opening scene, the stage directions “her expression is one of shocked disbelief. Her appearance is incongruous to this setting” conveys her difference in class and how Blanche already does not fit into this new world foreshadowing the end of the play when Blanche is pushed out of the new world. The dialogue “ they mustn’t have- understood- what number I wanted” highlights Blanche’s confusion as she arrives at Elysian Fields, which suggests that Blanche is entering into a world that she does not belong in. The use of the derogatory terms “negro”, “brown” and “one white and one coloured” all suggest that unlike in Blanche’s illusionary world, Stanley’s world, New Orleans does not separate races instead they intermingle. Throughout the play there are many references to animalistic qualities. Blanche is represented, as a “moth” of which is fragile and attracted to light, which leads to danger and death. Stanley is compared to a lion, a predator of power and strong…

    • 847 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Streetcar named desire was a play set in the 20th century, 1951 written by Teneesse Williams. This extrct from scene 10 is significant section of the play as it depicts the most important part of the play with the implied rape on Blanche by Stanley. Williams uses dramatic techniques and symbols which illustrate Stanley's violent and aggressive behavoiurs, displaying him in negative light and as a villian and through the use of violence and animal imagery. Also allowing us to see Stanley as an angonist to the actions he persued on Blanche. Teneesse Williams also uses the settings and motifs such as insanity to protray Blanche as a victim.…

    • 430 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Stanley's harsh, realistic world is often seen throughout the play this shows how different Blanches is. An example of this is Stanley's main interests: gambling, drinking, fighting, sex and bowling. All of these are very realistic things to do, very down to earth. Also throughout the play he shows no remorse for what he's done,…

    • 168 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    -Whereas Blanche comes from an old Southern family and was raised to see herself as socially elite, Stanley comes from an immigrant family and is a proud member of the working class. They meet one another in the socially turbulent postwar period in New Orleans, one of America's most diverse cities. Blanche and Stanley are polar opposites in several respects. Blanche repeatedly refers to Stanley and his world as brutish, primitive, apelike, rough, and uncivilized. Stanley finds this sort of superiority offensive and says so, but there is something primal and brutish about Stanley. By contrast, Blanche represents civilization on the decline. She speaks vaguely of art, music, and poetry as proof of progress, but reveals little true knowledge.…

    • 720 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Streetcar occupies a specific place and time in the American literary canon. Blanche finds herself adrift in the tough, yet endearing world of New Orleans in the mid to late 1940s. In Stella’s working class neighborhood, traversed by a streetcar named Cemeteries and a streetcar named Desire, there is a sort of…

    • 871 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The main characters in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ are Blanche, Stanley and Stella. Blanche is from old world America. She moves to New Orleans with her sister Stella and her husband Stanley after she goes through a bad time in her life and losses her job along with her family house. Blanche has power over her sister, and she abuses this power. This is first demonstrated when Blanche asks her sister to get her a drink from the drug store and she does so ‘Blanche- Honey, do me a favour. Run to the drug-store and get me a lemon-coke with plenty of chipped ice in it! – Will you do that for me, Sweetie?’ This demonstrates the power of fear which Stella feels. She believes that if she does not comply with her sisters ‘orders’ then she will have a more stressful and difficult life so she obeys.…

    • 1013 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dubois shows a mixed array of actions that confuses the audience into whether she is to be sympathized or not. At the beginning of the play, the author Tennessee Williams shows us the arrogant and demanding side of Blanche, provoking the audience to dislike her, but as the play goes on, Williams gradually reveals more about Blanche’s troublesome past, making the audience sympathize her more. Blanche arrives at the Kowalski household— Elysian Fields, dressed fancily. “She is daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and ear-rings of pearl, white gloves and hat, looking as if she were arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party in the garden district.”…

    • 583 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Blanche Vs Stanley

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages

    However, the challenges of authority in both Blanche and Stanley develop into the conflict and throughout the play determines who the “winner” is. Stanley although throughout the play loses his authority in some moments of the play; he is physically violent, intimidating, and most importantly economical dominant. Whereas Blanche goes against social order and victimized by Stanley through rape which raises the conflict of sociopolitical…

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Despite everything, she trusts she is a woman of high society nature, however, she has basically spoiled herself through her exercises at the flamingo. She showers a great deal, and this baffles Stanley. He works in the oil and waste and does not see it important to clean himself as regularly as Blanche, but then she washes continually. Blanche naturally dresses in white, the purest type of light. When she washes she is purifying herself. I feel that she may attempt to purify the blood of her dead spouse from herself. Stanley doesn't appear to own been through the emotional trauma that she has, so cannot perceive however she feels. Once you murder somebody, directly or otherwise, it sticks in your mind and Blanche has convinced herself of her responsibility towards his death. In summer then, Blanche shares many hot similarities with Stanley. Her perception of reality is comparable to Stanley's once it involves love; but she surrounds herself with the false and therefore the pretend, to comfort herself and to undertake and cleanse her body of the taint that…

    • 942 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Tennessee Williams, “A Street Car Named Desire”, Blanche Dubious is a complex, fascinating character who symbolizes many things throughout the book. Appropriately dressed in white, Blanche is first introduced as a symbol of innocence and chastity. Aristocratic, refined, and sensitive, this delicate beauty has a moth-like appearance. She has come to New Orleans to seek refuge at the home of her sister Stella and her coarse Polish husband, Stanley. With her nervous and refined nature, Blanche is a clear misfit in the Kowalski's apartment.…

    • 656 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Blanche seems eager to point out Stanley's faults to her sister whenever the opportunity arises. When Stella supposes that perhaps, Stanley is “common”,…

    • 636 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the play, A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, Blanche and Stanley are well-known, as opposite characters with symbols of conflicting deals, but these two characters also have many similarities with each other. For example, Stanley and Blanche both have a well-built desire for love. Stanley, has no need to seek for love because he yearns, his marriage life with his wife Stella. Blanche, on the other hand, is seeking for respect and love for a new husband, since she lost her last husband. Also, Stanley and Stella are a couple that appears to be loving and compassionate with each other, until Blanche comes for a visit to New Orleans to live with the couple. With conflicting issues dealing with Blanche and Stanley, it causes an unhealthy, abusive problems with Stella and Stanley’s marriage.…

    • 175 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Blanche and Stanley come from two very different upbringings. Blanche comes from a very wealthy upbringing, being raised in a giant Southern plantation. Stanley grew up with the poor, immigrant family who had to work for everything they had. Blanche often uses the derogatory term ‘Pollack’ for describing Stanley to refer to him as common or inferior. She then contradicts herself when she says “We are French by extraction. Our first American ancestors were French Huguenots” (Williams 31). Blanche seems to think her ethnic origins make her better than others, and uses it as a point of pride. She often during the play is seen showing her self-proclaimed superiority towards all of the other characters. In the film, Blanche is attracted to Mitch because…

    • 1525 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays