Preview

Humanity In Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1361 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Humanity In Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Questions
2. Tennessee Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire in order to exemplify the basic sexuality of humans. To do this he uses the most primitive bits of human nature and magnifies them into his characters’ personalities. The bare innocence of Stella, the raw masculinity of Stanley, and the sheer insanity of Blanche, all to show uniquely human qualities. To say that Stanley is an animalistic and primitive being, would be stating the obvious. Being married to the naïve Stella, his virility is even more apparent than it would be with just Stanley alone. By using these two vitally different human natures, Williams is able to dictate the inner conflict each person battles, the constant battle between their virtuousness and their desires, in a microscoped perspective. Blanche has her own sort of animal
…show more content…
While it is obvious her actual life has been incredibly difficult and beyond sorrowful, it is far more depressing that she is unable to grasp the harsh actuality of her life. In her world, life is perfect. Every man wants only her, her sister is unbearably jealous, and she is legitimately happy. However, in reality, no one wants her, her sister is unbearably happy, and she is off of her rocker.
From a psychiatric point of view, Blanche could be considered a victim of histrionic personality disorder. This disease is basically the psych evaluation of ‘drama queen’. A real disorder, it basically shows the erratic behavior of lying, selfishness, and hysteria; usually caused by a type of traumatic event (like Alan’s death) and series of unfortunate events (family deaths and loss of home). Blanche’s hallucinations, while not forgivable, can only be seen as sad. She is a lost soul and obviously suffers from some mental disorder or another. Her life is a train crash, you do not want to watch it be destroyed, but, at the same time, you want to watch it go up in

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Furthermore, Tennessee Williams’ realistic drama ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ presents two groups within society in a confined setting. His play sets out a realist effect on the middle class versus working class environment. Williams does this by personifying the two classes by using the relationship between two sisters. Stella, is the oldest sister who represents a working class, she lives in a shabby flat with her alcoholic, abusive, Polish husband Stanley, and is pregnant with his child. Blanche on the other hand is a middle class, sophisticated and self sufficient woman who is shocked at the way the working class lives, particularly her sisters living conditions. It could be suggested a class system is the cause of fragmentation within society,…

    • 227 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the commencement of the play, Blanche is quickly described as a damsel in distress. She is portrayed as a wealthy woman “in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and earing of pearl, white gloves and hat…” (5). She resembles an embellished white moth. The fact that she is forced to live with her younger sister Stella and her domineering husband truly shows that Blanche is in a truly desperate situation. Her overall character is depicted as a traumatized woman that is in complete desolation. Experiences such as witnessing her family on a “...Long parade to the graveyard” (21). Being forced to live with your family until their tragic demise would emotionally and mentally torment anyone. She lives inside of her own world in which she…

    • 190 Words
    • 1 Page
    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

    "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams tells the tale of Blanche Dubois and her steady decline into insanity through a series of events. Throughout the story the harsh, realistic world of Stanley clashes with Blanche's filmy, illusionary world. These differences can be seen in how Stanley is portrayed, how is portrayed and how Stella is a bridge between the two worlds. Stanley represents the realistic world.…

    • 168 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Within this drama Blanche’s life is the very depiction of how one single tragic event can play a major role in one’s future. However, in Blanche’s case, a series of tragic events spark a new lifestyle. Blanche’s sexual needs were never satisfied. She met and fell madly in love at a very young age. At just sixteen years old, she fell in love as well as eloped. After investing time in what she saw as a blissful marriage to her husband, Allan, he admitted to her that he was homosexual. She felt betrayed. She felt used and taken advantage of. Instead of…

    • 1154 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One reason Blanche would rather live a life of deception is because the truth hurts too much. Similarly when light is shown on a person who has been in a dark place for a very long time, it will hurt their eyes. To Blanche the truth is very painful and being unable to face the truth, she says she has been telling “what ought to be truth” (1830). She wishes that the lies she has told were true. Repeatedly, Blanche avoids light because she feels guilty of her sins, is trying to hide her lies, or does not want to face the…

    • 1339 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    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
  • Good Essays

    By examining Stella's ineptitude to recognize Stanley’s true character, Blanche’s solace in her own fantasy, and contrasting them with Stanley’s hard set realistic view of life, Tennessee William reveals the only way to shield themselves from the horrors of reality is to live life in one’s own fantasy.…

    • 794 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    She would later get run out of her home in Laurel after she became the disgrace of the town, town slut, and she loses her job after she attempts to have intimate relationships with her students. These two events leave her homeless and without a job, so in order to survive she decides to call on her younger sister, Stella, who is living in New Orleans with a war veteran. She believes that if she was to go and live with Stella, both Stella and Stanley would be happy to provide for her as she lives out the rest of her fantasies and possible finds herself a new man. She succeeds in finding a new man, Mitch, however, he later calls her a dirty slut that is not clean enough to bring into the house with his mother. Basically, Blanche got caught in her web of lies after she began attacking Stanley`s authority and out of spite he tipped of Mitch about Blanche`s true self and the Mitch dumps Blanche. This triggers an emotional breakdown, in which Blanches false hopes begin to come crashing down around her and in the end, Stanley decide to exert his dominance over her, which causes for Blanche to completely fall apart at the seams. Blanche is so emotionally distraught about what had happened to her that she gets sent away to a mental asylum so that she would finally be able to get the help she needed or at least live out her illusions away from everyone…

    • 1372 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Blanche Dubois Essay

    • 435 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In summary, Blanche forecasts a dainty but highbrow disposition throughout the story. She reveals partial truths in regards to the family fortune, her employment status and her love life. These partial truths are exactly what make her character so intriguing, not to mention the closing of scene three’s discussion with Mitch and the discovery that they both have lost a loved one. This is the second time Blanche addresses her widow status, however, at this point, fails to provide the details of this tragedy, leaving the audience with an unresolved yearning to discover what is going on with…

    • 435 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    the two of them were dancing, she told him what she had seen and how he…

    • 1498 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    An illusion is something that deceives by producing a false or misleading impression of reality. In Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire, characters such as Blanche Dubois, Harold Mitchell (Mitch), and Stella Kowalski often use illusion in an attempt to escape reality. Blanche Dubois is a woman who uses fantasy in order to protect herself from her own fears and the undesirable circumstances which occur in her life. Mitch uses illusion by regarding Blanche as the perfect woman in order to escape her lies and false reality. Stella uses illusion to make it seem as though she has a happy marriage in order to make her life and the abuse from Stanley bearable.…

    • 1287 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Research Paper

    • 1228 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Blanche dwells in illusion; fantasy is her primary means of self-defense, both against outside threats and against her own demons. But her deceits carry no trace of malice, but rather they come from her weakness and inability to confront the truth head-on. She is a quixotic figure, seeing the world not as it is but as it ought to be. Fantasy has a liberating magic that protects her from the tragedies she has had to endure. Throughout the play, Blanche's dependence on illusion is contrasted with Stanley's steadfast realism, and in the end it is Stanley and his worldview that win. To survive, Stella must also resort to a kind of illusion, forcing herself to believe that Blanche's accusations against Stanley are false so that she can continue living with her husband.…

    • 1228 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful 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
  • Powerful Essays

    When the play begins, Blanche is already a fallen woman in society’s eyes. Her family fortune and estate are gone, she lost her young husband to suicide years earlier, and she is a social pariah due to her indiscrete sexual behavior. She also has a bad drinking problem, which she covers up poorly. Behind her veneer of social snobbery and sexual propriety, Blanche is an insecure, dislocated individual. She is an aging Southern belle who lives in a state of perpetual panic about her fading beauty. Her manner is dainty and frail, and she sports a wardrobe of showy but cheap evening clothes. Stanley quickly sees through Blanche’s act and seeks out information about her past. The notion of death is apparent through Blanches maiden name, Grey, which suggests bleakness and unhappiness. Indeed we are introduced to the fact that behind…

    • 1679 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays