Symbolism in A Streetcar Named Desire
During the late nineteen-forties, it was common for playwrights such as Tennessee Williams to use symbolism as an approach to convey personal thoughts, through the attitudes of the characters and the setting. Williams' actors have used symbolism to disguise the actuality of their thoughts and to accommodate the needs of their conservative audience. A Streetcar Named 'Desire' has a few complicated character traits and themes. Therefore, they have to be symbolised using figures or images to express abstract and mystical ideas, so that the viewers can remain clueless. Williams not only depicts a clear personality of the actors but he also includes real-life public opinions from the past (some of which are contemporary.) These opinions were likely to raise controversies on issues such as prejudice, social gender expectations and men and women's roles in society. There have been numerous occasions when symbolism has taken place in A Streetcar Named 'Desire.' Firstly, Stanley is insulted several times by Blanche (his sister-in-law) Stella (his beloved wife) and other residents of the 'Quarter'. For example, the term 'animal' has been constantly spoken of, to define Stanley's malicious and ill-natured conduct. In scene four, Blanche tries to persuade her younger sister to go elsewhere and leave her husband. On page 163, she complains: Blanche: He acts like an animal, has an
A Streetcar Named Desire - scene by scene analysis.
A Streetcar Named Desire Scene One The play begins with a description of Elysian Fields which is in New Orleans and is where they play is set. We are first introduced to the other occupants of the street and then Stanley Kowalski. He arrives accompanied by his friend Mitch and greets his wife Stella by bellowing at her. Stella is about twenty-five years old and a gentle woman, who has clearly come from a completely different background to her husband. Shortly after, Blanche DuBois Stella's older sister arrives. She is dressed as if she was attending a cocktail party and has an uncertain manner. She appears rather shocked by her surroundings, which she takes no time in mentioning to Stella. Blanche waits for her sister to arrive and in the mean time she helps herself to some alcohol. The two sisters greet each other with an awkward embrace and Blanche asks to look at Stella but prevents Stella doing the same in return, not until Blanche had bathed and rested. Blanche has another drink and fails to mention she has already helped herself. Stella talks of her husband Stanley and how dependent she is on him. She comments on how she can't stand it when he is away and Blanche seems to disapprove of their relationship. This may be because Stanley is referred to as a "Polack" and the two sisters have come from a Southern upper class family. Blanche arrives at her sister's with bad
A Streetcar Named Desire
The characters of A Streetcar Named Desire are reluctant to accept the truth.' Practice Essay Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire explores the idea of an imperfect reality and how the characters are reluctant to accept the truth. Williams, portrays Blanche as an uncertain character who has come from Laurel Mississippi to live with her sister and brother-in-law in New Oleans. Blanche hides behind the veneer of outer beauty when is placed under the spotlight, fails to live up to the person she would like people to think that she is. Stella accepts her sister as she is but Stanley only wants the truth out of Blanche. The consequences of avoiding the truth prove devastating. Blanche is reluctant to accept the truth and as a result her world hinges on illusion and deception She suffers from a terrible loneliness from which she seeks to escape in inappropriate ways. When nobody is watching she consumes enough alcohol, to save her from the truth. What Blanche is like when on her own is a direct antithesis to the image she would like to portray of herself. She lives in a fantasy world to protect herself against her weaknesses and shortcomings and has dealt with her suffering by taking refuge in fanciful dreams about herself and her surroundings, 'I don't want realism I want magic... I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the
Plot of 'A Streetcar Named Desire'.
Plot of 'A Streetcar Named Desire' The play opens looking into a two story flat on Elysian Fields Street in New Orleans. It is the home of Stanley and Stella Kowalski. They live on the bottom floor while Eunice and Steve Hubbell live upstairs. The neighbourhood is a mixed-race community and is located between the L and N streetcar tracks. This area is teemed with many pubs, bars and bowling alleys. Scene 1- > Stanley and Mitch walk to the house looking for Stella. Stanley throws a package of meat at Stella to cook. They leave to go bowling. Stella follows to watch him play. > Blanche enters. She walks inside, exhausted, and kindly tries to get rid of Eunice. Eunice leaves to go to the Bowling alley to bring Stella home. She finds some whiskey and begins drinking until Stella comes. > Blanche tells Stella that she lost Belle Reve, their childhood home. Stella is distraught and escapes to the bathroom. > While she is gone, Stanley comes home, recognising Blanche. They introduce one another and chat for a few minutes about Blanche's past, relationships and marriage. She responds that she was married once, but her young husband died. Scene 2 - > Stanley feels like he is being cheated over the loss of Belle Reve under the Napoleonic Code and explains it to Stella. "In the state of Louisiana we have the Napoleonic code according to which what belongs to the wife belongs
"It is impossible to feel sympathy for Blanche" - Discuss.
"It is impossible to feel sympathy for Blanche." Discuss. Blanche in "A Streetcar Named Desire" is a character who will throughout the duration of the play invoke all sorts of contrasting, even opposite emotions. To analyse one's emotions is no easy task, and to do so most effectively one must break the play into different parts and analyse them separately. The problem with Blanche is that she presents a character so mixed up in her own motives and opinions that one never knows if it is really her or an act she's putting on. The audience will find itself constantly readjusting its position towards Blanche and the other characters as the play unfolds and we learn more about her story and the reasons behind her inadequacies. Williams makes sure nothing is white or black but grey so that at some moments in the play we struggle to find a reason for her cool manipulation and hunger for power while at others we pity her pathetic life founded on lies and misconceptions. Even when she tries to break up Stanley and Stella's relationship we don't immediately brand her as a villain, we remember that if Stella hadn't left than maybe Blanche would have become what she had wanted to become rather than what society dictated her to become. When we see Blanche for the very first time we know right away that she does not belong in Stella's neighbourhood, she is "daintily dressed" and her
A Streetcar Named Desire - It is impossible to feel sympathy for Blanche.
"It is impossible to feel sympathy for Blanche." Discuss. Blanche in "A Streetcar Named Desire" is a character who will throughout the duration of the play invoke all sorts of contrasting, even opposite emotions. To analyse one's emotions is no easy task, and to do so most effectively one must break the play into different parts and analyse them separately. The problem with Blanche is that she presents a character so mixed up in her own motives and opinions that one never knows if it is really her or an act she's putting on. The audience will find itself constantly readjusting its position towards Blanche and the other characters as the play unfolds and we learn more about her story and the reasons behind her inadequacies. Williams makes sure nothing is white or black but grey so that at some moments in the play we struggle to find a reason for her cool manipulation and hunger for power while at others we pity her pathetic life founded on lies and misconceptions. Even when she tries to break up Stanley and Stella's relationship we don't immediately brand her as a villain, we remember that if Stella hadn't left than maybe Blanche would have become what she had wanted to become rather than what society dictated her to become. When we see Blanche for the very first time we know right away that she does not belong in Stella's neighbourhood, she is "daintily dressed" and her
The character of Blanche in
Blanche in "A Streetcar Named Desire" is a character who will throughout the duration of the play invoke all sorts of contrasting, even opposite emotions. To analyse one's emotions is no easy task, and to do so most effectively one must break the play into different parts and analyse them separately. The problem with Blanche is that she presents a character so mixed up in her own motives and opinions that one never knows if it is really her or an act she's putting on. The audience will find itself constantly readjusting its position towards Blanche and the other characters as the play unfolds and we learn more about her story and the reasons behind her inadequacies. Williams makes sure nothing is white or black but grey so that at some moments in the play we struggle to find a reason for her cool manipulation and hunger for power while at others we pity her pathetic life founded on lies and misconceptions. Even when she tries to break up Stanley and Stella's relationship we don't immediately brand her as a villain, we remember that if Stella hadn't left than maybe Blanche would have become what she had wanted to become rather than what society dictated her to become. When we see Blanche for the very first time we know right away that she does not belong in Stella's neighbourhood, she is "daintily dressed" and her "delicate beauty must avoid a strong light", she seems in a
Plot and Sub-plot of A Streetcar Named Desire
Jordan Harris - AS Unit 1- Exploration Notes Plot and Sub-plot of A Streetcar Named Desire Scene 1: Blanche Dubois, who has been fired from her teaching job, arrives unannounced at the small two-room apartment of her sister, Stella Kowalski. Stella, who lives with Stanley, her rough and domineering husband, in a poor section of the French Quarter in New Orleans, welcomes her older sister. Blanche is shocked by the looks and size of the apartment and expresses her doubts about the lack of privacy, but she refuses to go to a hotel for she cannot bear to be alone. Blanche also drinks heavily to calm her nerves, but initially hides the fact. Blanche knows that her youth is slipping away and wants to be reassured, which Stella dutifully does. Blanche also reveals that Belle Reve; their old, aristocratic, and palatial house in Laurel, no longer belongs to them. She speaks of the struggle it took to hang on to the place and expresses resentment that Stella had taken an easy escape route by marrying Stanley, a Polish foreigner.Her resentment shows as she refers him as a 'Polak'! Blanche describes her long vigils at the bedside of the dying members of the family and how the house had to be mortgaged to pay for the funeral expenses. Stanley arrives, and Blanche introduces herself. He is an ex-soldier, every inch a male and very proud of it. He plays poker with his friends and is fond
How successfully has Williams introduced the main characters and ideas of A Streetcar named Desire in the first two scenes?
How successfully has Williams introduced the main characters and ideas of "A Streetcar named Desire" in the first two scenes? "A Streetcar Named Desire" contains many different themes and symbolism, included by Williams to help introduce the characters and ideas of the play. I believe one of the main ideas Williams tries to convey in this play is to do with the streetcar being a metaphor for the idea of fate, going down one route and not being able to change your direction but being destined to arrive in one, pre-chosen destination. "Take a streetcar named desire, and then transfer to one called the cemeteries" shows further how Williams chose the name of the play to symbolise how desire and passion (in Blanche's case) lead to death or self destruction. Within the first two scenes of the play, my first impressions of Stanley were that he was the alpha male, in charge of his household, very stereotypical of a working class man. You also see Stanley as quite short tempered and slightly violent without many manners. Stanley is first seen in the play in a bowling jacket which shows immediately his working class background and joy in sports. He is also carrying a red meat stained package showing his savage manliness and that he is bringing home the food for his family. His character is also constructed through the language he uses in the first scene; in a conversation with
Discuss and analyse the way Tennessee Williams presents Blanche and Stanley in A street car named desire with close reference to scene 10.
This essay will explore, discuss and analyse the way Tennessee Williams presents Blanche and Stanley in ‘A street car named desire’ with close reference to scene 10. In this essay I will analyse what we learn about the characters through stage directions, actions and dialogue. At the opening of the play Blanche DuBois has come to New Orleans to visit her sister Stella, who is married to man named Stanley Kowalski. Blanche is suffering from the loss of her family's house as well as the pain her husband had caused her years earlier by killing himself. Blanche's emotional neediness exhausts her sister and annoys Stanley and most of his friends. But one of the men, Stanley's poker buddy Mitch, finds Blanche very attractive and considers her a real lady until Stanley disillusions him. Blanche is Stanley's polar opposite, but he finds himself drawn to her through the course of the play and ultimately rapes her. He tells mitch a bout her past and ends any chance his friend and Blanche would have had at happiness by telling. Rather than Stanley's reckless actions destroying his marriage, he remains unscathed. Stella claims to believe Blanche's accusations of rape are false. Blanche is sent away to a mental hospital after Stanley assaults her. There we imagine that she will get some of the help she obviously needs. But that help can't make up for the attack that no one believes
