Stanley Kowalski (husband of Stella) is a ‘simple, straight forward and honest’ that treats his wife with absolutely no respect; I can imagine his opinion is that she does not deserve this respect, as she is only a woman. Yet although he does not give her this respect he would expect her to obey his commands and tolerate his irrational behaviour. Surprisingly enough Stella accepts this behaviour, even with her intellectual background, and when questioned defends his behaviour after a brutal attack; “he was as good as a lamb when I came back and he’s really very, very ashamed of himself.” Then again when she does choose to disobey him and he responds with violence, Stanley insincerely apologises and expects that his wife has learnt from her mistakes.
This behaviour was not uncommon in this time period, domestic violence was an occurrence in everyday life as it was a mans way of obtaining a desired behaviour from his wife. William’s decided to show this regular occurrence in his play by not only showing one mans physical abuse, but almost all the time, even Stanley’s and Stella’s neighbours are shown using physical abuse towards each other.
Stella is a passive woman, displayed this way through how she responds to the people and situations around her. When Stanley beats her she understands that his drunkenness takes hold of him and he has no control over his actions. She has convinced herself that he means her no harm and that his intentions are good. Her obedience is show because she knows she must follow his rules in order for their marriage to run smoothly. She was aware of his violent temper from the beginning of their marriage and she claims it thrilled her, ‘I was-sort-of thrilled by it’ maybe this is due to the dramatic change in her lifestyle now in comparison to her fairly subdued upbringing. This suggests that even with warnings of his behaviour, she couldn’t help falling from him and also leads to the fact that a majority of their relationship is built upon sex. Stella feels she can’t take care of herself because Stanley has always made the decisions and decided what is best for them and her. He provides the security she needs to feel that she will always be loved and cared for. Stanley looks after her and that’s all she wants from him and is prepared to overlook his bad points because of his supposed love for her, she needs a man to guide her and Stanley is the man for this.
Stella does not approve of her husbands temper and violence towards her, but in the back of her mind she knows she would not subsist if she left, mainly due to the fact that women found it increasingly difficult to find jobs as most employers were males who believed women should be at home caring for their families. Stanley also provides he financial support Stella needs in order to survive; especially now with her expecting a baby, and it obvious that she loves him deeply and cherishes the times they have together.
William’s does not necessarily criticize Stella, but in fact makes it much quite clear that Stella represents a much more secure figure than Blanche does and show this by choosing to love and stay with Stanley over her sister.
Blanche on the other hand sees marriage to Mitch as a means of escaping destitution. The sexual exploitation she had had with men has left her with a poor reputation, leaving her unattractive to marriage proposals. Because she is destitute Blanche sees marriage as her only chance of survival. When Mitch rejects Blanche after hearing gossip of her reputation, Blanche immediately thinks of another man who might be able to rescue her, even though in my opinion this man may be completely fictional she still manages to convince herself he will help. Because Blanche cannot see around her dependence on men, she has no realistic conception of how to rescue herself, and does not realise that her dependence on men will lead to her downfall rather than her salvation. By relying on men, Blanche puts her fate in the hands of others.
The men in this novel genuinely seem as straightforward and primitive as Stanley, maybe with the exclusion of Mitch, it seems that the lifestyle they lead and also the city and general acceptance of drinking regularly has made them like this. Women allow men to use physical aggression towards them, and men feel that this is acceptable behaviour. The women don’t seem to have much control of their loves and in fact are quite weak when compared to the men. In conclusion to this essay I feel that the women were too passive and the men too aggressive, yet it seems to be acceptable behaviour with no-one at the time wanting to break the mould in order to change this.
