A Streetcar Named Desire: Contextualising Essay

In Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams explores the internal conflict of illusion versus reality through the characters. Humans often use illusion to save us pain and it allows us to enjoy pleasure instead. However, as illusion clashes with reality, one can forget the difference between the two. When people are caught up in their illusions, eventually they must face reality even if it is harsh. In the play, Blanche suffers from the struggle of what is real and what is fake because of the difficult events of her past. Blanche comes to her sister Stella seeking aid because she has lost her home, her job, and her family. To deal with this terrible part of her life, she uses fantasy to escape her dreadful reality. Blanche’s embracement of a fantasy world can be categorized by her attempts to revive her youth, her relationship struggles, and attempts to escape her past.

“Stella has embraced him with both arms, fiercely, and full in the view of Blanche. He laughs and clasps her head to him. Over her head he grins through the curtains at Blanche.” (Williams 73) A Streetcar Named Desire written by Tennessee Williams exemplifies the theme of a struggle to attain happiness. The play not only portrays this theme in its characters and setting, but through the literary devices of Foil, Imagery, and Intertextuality. Williams took great care in applying each of these literary device techniques to the theme as he presents an intriguing contrast between Blanche and Stanley, vivid images both animalistic and broken, and imploring the use of the Odyssey to further

This 1950's theatrical presentation was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Tennessee Williams. It is about a southern bell by the name of Blanche Dubois who loses her father's plantation to a mortgage and travels to live in her sister's home in New Orleans by means of a streetcar called Desire. There she finds her sister living in a mess with a drunken bully husband, and the events that follow cause Blanche to step over the line of insanity and fall victim to life's harsh lessons.

Initially, after a discussion of cultural and contextual elements through interactive orals from my peers "Streetcar Named Desire”, my understanding about the book has stimulated new eye openers of other perspectives. As a group we explored the way contextual elements were related throughout the book and his life experiences. We elaborated on how they developed Tennessee Williams has a writer. One thing that was pinpoint would have throughout the gallery walk we have noticed William has been through tons of emotional misery. As a result, he tied and experiences with the life that correlated with struggle into his book. For example, he constantly plays the blues as a symbol representing his life of misfortune. We have concluded that this is

In the classic fairytale of Cinderella, the main character is trapped in an abusive household. However, Cinderella’s self-perception of optimism and hope, enables her to believe that ultimately, her life will naturally improve with these attributes. True to her convictions, Cinderella gets her happily ever after by going to the ball where the prince falls in love with her. Cinderella is saved from her evil. On the other hand, Cinderella can be viewed as a victim who does nothing to enable herself to escape her abusive reality, insteads helplessly waits for fate to intervene. She does not confront the situation nor independently strive to improve her circumstances. Correspondingly, how individuals act when faced with conflict is strongly influenced by their self-perception. It is possible to become confused between reality and illusion, which is determined by their level of self-awareness. In Tennessee Williams’ play, A Streetcar Named Desire, the character of Stella struggles between the control of her husband and sister. Throughout the play, this conflict is demonstrated as she struggles with becoming aware of her abusive household and the contrast to the fairytale illusion she desperately clings to. Ultimately, Stella’s choice to maintain her illusion, rather than confronting her reality, is due to the self-perception of her need to depend on others and desire for idealism, which overall controls her fate.

and self - pitying ways from the death of her husband and the lies of

Old folks used to say everything will happen thrice for a person. Twice Blanche escaped from dangerous situations, and the final one is about escaping from Palmer her rapist. African American people believe that Ancestors will send people in someone’s life for a purpose to understand or to enjoy their life. Blanche believes that her Ancestors had given Thelvin as a reward or consolation prize for going backs to her homeland. “That night, for the first time in a long time, she dreamed of having been raped” (165) thus Ancestors shown her sign of forthcoming happenings.

The Raw Power of A Streetcar Named Desire         Tennessee Williams's play A Streetcar Named Desire contains more within it's characters, situations, and story than appears on its surface. As in many of Williams's plays, there is much use of symbolism and interesting characters in order to draw in and involve the audience.   The plot of A Streetcar Named Desire alone does not captivate the audience.  

There are 3 major themes in the play A Streetcar Named Desire, the first is the constant battle between fantasy and reality, second we have the relationship between sexuality and death, and lastly the dependence of men plays a major role in this book.

Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire is a play that tells the tale of a family in 1940’s New Orleans. It examines the issues of delusion, escapism, the pitfalls of desire, and the idea that people are reluctant to see the truth when it deviates from what their ‘perception’ or what they want from the world. This is all done from a variety of critical lenses. The aforementioned ‘critical lens’ is mostly simply defined as a specific way of looking at a text, by keeping certain questions and ideas in mind. This is important, as it allows the reader to understand a work beyond a mere two dimensional point of view- by analysis on another layer, with certain key factors in mind, a reader is able to further understand the work and the ‘subconscious meaning’ behind the choices of the author. While A Streetcar Named Desire is a novel about the chains of our own making, the reader’s experience and

In many modern day relationships between a man and a woman, there is usually a controlling figure that is dominant over the other. It may be women over man, man over women, or in what the true definition of a marriage is an equal partnership. In the play A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams Stanley is clearly the more dominant figure over Stella. Throughout the play there are numerous examples of the power he possesses of her. Williams portrays Stella as a little girl who lives around in Stanley’s world. She does what he wants, takes his abuse yet still loves him. Situations likes these may have occurred in the 1950’s and lasted, but in today’s time this would only end up in a

shall firstly do a summery of the play and give a basic image of what

I agree that characters in the book A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, use lying and deception to fuel their social status. These lies develop trust and relationship issues and threaten the wellbeing of everyone involved. Blanche, was a high school english teacher in mississippi who was forced to leave her life behind there. With nowhere to go Blanche moves in with her sister Stella and husband Stanley, who has a suspicion about Blanche's past life which lead to some unwanted events.

Tennesse Williams in his A Streetcar Named Desire creates a conflict of civility and brutality through the characters of Blanche and Stanley. The conflict is created through Apollonian and Dionysian thought and supported in the play with symbols, characters, motifs and language/dialogue. Williams creates a constant struggle between Blanche’s need for fantasy and illusion and Stanley constantly trying to ground Blanche, forcing her to acknowledge reality. The first image of Stanley throwing meat at Stella is a symbol that represents his primitive self, inner brutality and savage like behavior, all qualities of Dionysian thought.

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