The Blanche/Stanley Conflict in Scenes I - IV of "A Streetcar Named Desire". What is the nature of the conflict between Stanley and Blanche, and how is it represented?

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The Blanche/Stanley Conflict in Scenes I – IV of “A Streetcar Named Desire”

What is the nature of the conflict between Stanley and Blanche, and how is it represented?

Stanley Kowalski and Blanche Dubois, characters in a play by Tennessee Williams called “A Streetcar Named Desire”, are brother and sister in law, as Stanley is married to Blanche’s sister Stella.

Almost from the beginning of the play, the reader is aware that there are indeed conflicts between the two of them. There are several reasons for this conflict, the first being one of class.

Stanley Kowalski, as his name suggests, is an American of Polish extraction, whilst Blanche Dubois is an aging Southern debutante. They are at absolute opposite ends of the social spectrum in America – Blanche is representative of the past, and Stanley is very much the embodiment of modern, new America - appearing to see himself as some kind of social leveller, he mocks Blanche several times throughout the play for the way that she sees herself as better than him.

They appear to almost immediately become locked in a struggle to be the highest in Stella’s affections, and practically every scene that contains both Blanche and Stanley has conflict running throughout it, either in undertone, or blatantly.

So, there is the conflict for Stella’s love, and the conflict of each wishing to be better than the other.

In scene one, it begins to become obvious that Blanche is jealous of Stella’s love for Stanley, and also vice versa, in that Stanley is unused to having to compete for his wife’s attention. Blanche tells Stella at every opportunity that Stanley is “not good enough” for her, through subtle and not so subtle words. “Oh, I guess he’s just not the type that goes for Jasmine perfume” – inferring that Stanley is unable to appreciate the finer things in life.

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Stanley is a practical and physical man as the play opens, seeming to be somewhat of a hero – (one scene at the beginning has him throwing a package of meat up to Stella who was waiting at an open window. This appears symbolic of a cave man bringing home his catch for his woman, but at the same time having sexual overtones – something missing from Blanches life at the moment.) He both works and plays hard, and very obviously adores his wife. He has little time for Blanche’s hysteria and flights of fancy, very early on her appears ...

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