Preview

A Streetcar Named Desire Rhetorical Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
328 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A Streetcar Named Desire Rhetorical Analysis
I believe the primary theme of A Streetcar Named Desire is madness as the result of a disconnect between idealism and reality. The main character of the play, Blanche DuBois, refuses to face reality, keeping her past mistakes and losses hidden from those around her by hiding in the shadows of madness and deception. She wishes nothing more than to escape from who she is, avoiding the interrogation lamp of life at all costs to conceal her depressing past and frightening present. In doing so, she falls more and more away from what was genuine as she wanted to live in a world of magic where none existed, forcing her into a pit of insanity and depression as her past finally catches up with her. A significant rhetorical strategy employed by Tennessee
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Analysis: A Streetcar Named Desire
    • 116 Words
    • 1 Page

    Analysis: A Streetcar Named Desire

    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
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Quotes From A Streetcar Named Desire Monologue
    • 358 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Quotes From A Streetcar Named Desire Monologue

    Quote #1 Speaker & Page: Blanche (Scene 1, bottom of 21) Quotation: “ I, I, I took the blows in my face and my body! All of those deaths! The parade to graveyard! Father, mother!…

    • 358 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Desire and Death in "A Streetcar Named Desire"
    • 1196 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Desire and Death in "A Streetcar Named Desire"

    In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche refuses to accept reality and tries to resuscitate her idealized past through memory. She allows desire to conduct the way she lives and as a matter of fact is ultimately destroyed by the pursuit of her sexual desires. The correlation between death and desire is a prominent aspect that Williams explores in A Streetcar Named Desire. Throughout the play, death and desire are frequently and consistently entwined on many levels, particularly in the connotation of sexual desire inevitably leading to death or extreme wreckage of some kind and vice versa.…

    • 1196 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Catcher In The Rye Rhetorical Analysis
    • 671 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Catcher In The Rye Rhetorical Analysis

    Holden notices two nuns with cheap looking suitcases. He immediately judges them based on the appearance of their suitcases.Holden says that he doesn’t like cheap suitcases because they do not look as nice. He is not just talking about suitcases, he means people who are in different economic positions than his. This shows how Holden, who grew up going to private schools where almost all the boys were from rich families, wasn’t used to being around someone who was from a lower class or someone who wasn’t as rich as he was. Holden talks about his old roommate, Dick Slagle who had an inexpensive suitcase wanted to be perceived as rich and looked upon as a higher classman from his peers. This is an example of the 1950’s superiority complex, Dick…

    • 671 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    A Streetcar Named Desire Character Analysis
    • 865 Words
    • 4 Pages

    A Streetcar Named Desire Character Analysis

    Characterizing – it is a daily occurrence that many do not realize is taking place. Whether it appears by describing someone’s new hair or explaining a person’s personality, characterization is frequently happening. Yet, representation of an individual does not only take place in the real world, it appears in numerous literary works as well. For example, in the written matters of A Streetcar Named Desire, A Separate Peace, and “Everyday Use”, where character interactions, such as arguing and having conflicting beliefs, bring out strong depictions and central messages. While some readers of these pieces of literature may believe that character interaction shows no relation to theme relativity; a closer inquiry demonstrates that through characters such as Stella and Stanley, Mama and Dee, and Gene and Finny, an…

    • 865 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    A Streetcar Named Desire Rhetorical Analysis
    • 393 Words
    • 2 Pages

    A Streetcar Named Desire Rhetorical Analysis

    Williams’ use of diction when he says, “The damned little brat must be protected against her own idiocy, one says to one's self at such times. Others must be protected against her. It is a social necessity.” shows how he views kids. He is saying to readers children do not know any better and because we are older we are expected to protect and guide them in order for society to function properly. He realizes how oblivious this was to him before and how much pint up aggression he had towards this matter. It showed in the forced he used on the girl. He continues by saying “In a final unreasoning assault I overpowered the child's neck and jaws. I forced the heavy silver spoon back of her teeth and down her throat till she gagged. And there it was--both tonsils covered with membrane. She had fought valiantly to keep me from knowing her secret. She had been hiding that sore throat for three days at…

    • 393 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    A Streetcar Named Desire Critical Review Essay
    • 871 Words
    • 4 Pages

    A Streetcar Named Desire Critical Review Essay

    Critics have praised Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire for its characters. Crude, sensual Stanley; dreamy, burned-out Blanche; bashful, meek Mitch. That being said, the successful portrayal of these characters is the mark of an excellent Streetcar performance. According to many readers, the stunning characterization is what makes A Streetcar Named Desire so compelling and legendary. Yet I would like to disagree. I think it is the play’s setting that makes the story so fascinating.…

    • 871 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Character Analysis: A Streetcar Named Desire
    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Character Analysis: A Streetcar Named Desire

    Everyone wants to live a life they do not have. Some people want to be rich, while others want to travel the world and never work a day in their lives. In order to live the lives they do not have, many people create their own fantasies. Tennessee Williams’ Streetcar Named Desire depicts Blanche and Stella’s lives as lies, while revealing how they do not wish to face their own realities, for they will never to able to live the life they have always hoped for.…

    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Streetcar Named Desire Analysis
    • 388 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Streetcar Named Desire Analysis

    The play “streetcar named desire” written by Tennessee William in 1949, which was received the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1948. The play commenced on Broadway on December 3, 1947 in the Ethel Barrymore Theater. This play is about life of a woman in 19th century who could not come out of the fantasy to the real life that her self instinct and her surrounding creates extra problems in her life that makes her hide her historical and physical appearances and lied her sister and suitor. On the other hand, the poem “The Soul Selects Her Own Society” by Emily Dickinson, in 1890, this poem believed toHhave been written in 1862, a year during which Dickinson supposedly produced more than 300 poems. This poem suggests the persona of this poem in order…

    • 388 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    A Streetcar Named Desire Quote Analysis
    • 619 Words
    • 3 Pages

    A Streetcar Named Desire Quote Analysis

    The quote “Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right using of strength....” By, Henry Ward Beecher is a quote to agree with. This is because, if an individual uses all their strength, and puts it into something and tries their hardest to do the best that they can do, then thats greatness because that individual put all they had into something. All that matters is how that strength and power is used by the individual. Two works of literature that support this quote are “A Street Car Named Desire” By, Tennessee Williams and “Macbeth.” By, William Shakespeare. In the play write “A Street Car Named Desire” there are many examples of greatness and power in characters in which they weren't strong but they knew how to use the power and strength that they had and others didn’t know how to use their strength and power.…

    • 619 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Tale Of Two Cities Rhetorical Analysis
    • 745 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Tale Of Two Cities Rhetorical Analysis

    When people are in need, it is the moral duty of others to help ease their suffering to the best of their ability. This is especially true for the poor, poverty one of the leading causes of universal suffering. The lack of money can have severe detrimental effects on a person’s lifestyle, including lack of education, nutrition, and motivation. However, while it is easy to reimburse the less fortunate with monetary assets, the attitude and perspective developed in their impoverished state can be harder to heal. A prominent example of this was the peasant class during the French Revolution, as Charles Dickens reveals in his novel, A Tale of Two Cities. Throughout the novel, Dickens conveys the idea that poverty can change people's’ attitudes…

    • 745 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    A Streetcar Named Desire Symbolism Essay
    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages

    A Streetcar Named Desire Symbolism Essay

    Symbolism is an important literary device used to give the reader an understanding of a character. Tennessee Williams, with the use of symbolism, brings his character’s alive in his play, A Streetcar name desire. In the story the reader follows a young southern woman by the name of Blanche Dubois as she moves to New Orleans to live with her sister, Stella, and her brother-in-law, Stanley. From there the reader slowly sees the Blanche’s descent into madness as she begins to lose her grip on reality. In the play Blanche is characterized using symbols like, bathing, light, and music.…

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    A Streetcar Named Desire Perception Essay
    • 1372 Words
    • 6 Pages

    A Streetcar Named Desire Perception Essay

    Perception plays an integral role in the fabric of human existence, simply because it affects how we view ourselves and also others view us. Blanche Dubois, Stanley Kowalski, Harold Mitch, and Stella Kowalski all learned this through their continuous evolution throughout “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams, however by focusing on Blanche's relations and also her past we are able to see the role that that perception plays in her life. When Blanche says,“A woman's charm is fifty percent illusion” this becomes increasingly significant because it is a demonstration of her self-perception about the role of a proper, woman in society. With that being said Blanche does not only believe this general perception, rather she embraces it so…

    • 1372 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Research Paper
    • 1228 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Research Paper

    The play A Streetcar Named Desire revolves around Blanche DuBois; therefore, the main theme of the drama concerns her directly. In Blanche is seen the tragedy of an individual 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. The final result is her destruction. This process began long before her clash with Stanley Kowalski. It started with the death of her young husband, a weak and perverted boy who committed suicide when she taunted him with her disgust at the discovery of his perversion. In retrospect, she knows that he was the only man she had ever loved, and from this early catastrophe evolves her promiscuity. She is lonely and frightened, and she attempts to fight this condition with sex. Desire fills the emptiness when there is no love and desire blocks the inexorable movement of death, which has already wasted and decayed Blanche's ancestral home Belle Reve.…

    • 1228 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    A Streetcar Named Desire Essay 2
    • 636 Words
    • 3 Pages

    A Streetcar Named Desire Essay 2

    To what extent do the Kowalskis and the DuBois represent a clash of cultures in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?…

    • 636 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics