A Streetcar Named Desire Gender Essay

Stella's marriage to Stanley, on the other hand, seems to have given her the happiness and fulfillment, which Blanche has attempted to find in a guilt-ridden life of loneliness with promiscuity. As a result Blanche has become neurotic and alcoholic, slipping increasingly into insanity. Stella, meanwhile, appears to have been thriving in a profane, coarse, but wholly satisfying sexual relationship with Stanley. Thus, superficially, the main contrast between Stella and Blanche seems to be one between sickness and health, perversity and normality, particularly in the sexual relationship. Stella is thriving; Blanche is disintegrating. But a closer examination of these sisters begins to show more complex differences in their characters and situations. Blanche is disintegrating for reasons other than sexual perversity, and Stella is paying a rather steep price for her so-called "normal" life with Stanley.

From my point of view the protagonist of A Streetcar Named Desire is Blanche Dubois. Blanche is a woman who was born and raised in the plantations in Mississippi. She’s about 30 years old. She is an English teacher who got fired for having an affair with a 17 year old student. She goes to New Orleans in 1947 to stay with her sister, Stella, and her sister’s husband Stanley Kowalski.

The play, A Streetcar Named Desiree, written by Tennessee Williams revolves around the life of Blanche Dubois. The death of her loved one led her to a miserable life, which also led her to reconnect with her sister. Once Blanche meets with her sister, She realizes Stella isn't living an easy life as she has expected. Blanche had to face the hatred of her sister’s husband, Stanley, who despised the lavish life of Blanche. As she tried to escape the misery of her past, Blanche seduced Stanley’s friend Mitch, who immediately falls for her. Using Mitch as a way to feel loved after the death of her past love. Stella and Blanche may have grown up together, but as they got older and went their separate ways, they had both developed different yet similar traits. In the play, A Streetcar Named Desiree, Blanche and Stella are sisters, who are both being degraded and dependent by men, show the misconception of reality, express different personalities and attitudes, and how they both view love.

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is a play that takes place in New Orleans. Many events in this play show the illusion of gender roles and how society places different stereotypes on people based on their gender. The main characters’ roles in their relationships show the typical way society thinks men and women should behave. There are two relationships in the story that stand out: Blanche and Mitch and Stanley and Stella. Blanche and Stella are sister and very different.

Blanche's actions fill the double need of hurting herself and creating disunity in her sister's family. Despite the fact that he appears to be unpleasant now and again, Stanley is just doing what is vital for the conservation of his family. As the leader of his family, and to be a decent spouse to Stella, Stanley must choose the option to demolish Blanche physically, rationally, and internally, to recapture the healthy environment that existed before her presence, which is mainly for his wife and his infant. As permitting Blanche to keep up the impact she has increased through untruths and control would bring about the downfall of his family, Stanley is going about as any adoring father and minding spouse ought to. He chooses the greater good of his family over the necessities of his sister in

While Blanche is portrayed through Williams use of authorial voice, as he depicts how for Blanche “the Grim Reaper…put up his tent on [her] doorstep” and how she experienced the “struggle for breath and bleeding” of her relatives. Since Stanley carries a Southern American accent, the use of vernacular, which is the slang written in the dialogue, portrays Stanley as a local person. In addition, Stanley has a rough and blunt personality and the work that he does, which all contributes to the middle class that he belongs to. Williams decides not to place vernacular into Blanche dialogue, to state a clear difference in their class. Contradicting to Stanley, Williams decides to use his authorial voice, where he is speaking through Blanche to the audience with his own language, to show Blanche’s aristocratic character.

In the opening of the play Blanche says, “They told [her] to take a street-car named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at—at Elysian Fields!”(1.1). This sentence sets the theme for the entire play. The streetcar “Desire” brought her to Stella’s home, but symbolically it shows that Blanche’s

The relationship between Stella and Stanley begins to change when Blanche arrives to see her sister, Stella. In Act…, it is evident Stanley takes interest in what Blanche wears and the way she behaves taking long baths and her unwillingness to discuss the sale of Belle Reve. Unwilling to listen to Stella when she tries to explain to him how delicate of a topic he sale of the plantation and her sister’s well-being is

Blanche’s unexpected arrival at the entrance of the play is what stirs an even bigger monster in Stanley. Upon her entrance, she immediately causes trouble due to her and Stanley’s differences. Blanche is a southern belle from a very wealthy background. She is very proud of being brought up in the upper class while Stanley is proud that he lead his own life through the working class. This makes him a very rude and animalistic man with a lower level of education. Even their first conversation

It was not just her self that put her in the lime light of being a victim; it is also her new change of environment and people. Stanley is Stella's husband; he is described to be very masculine and aware of his sexual magnetism. “Strongly, compactly built”. He is mostly at ease with people however, if they lack loyalty and affection to him, he will bully them. Especially women, as he believes them just to be easy conflict. It is seen in scene 3 that Stanley has little respect for women. “I said to hush up!” This is addressed to his wife who is seen emotionless and impassive in this play. As for Blanche how is fussy and at edge, she would be very effected by the crude attitude that Stanley presents and so tries to hysterical take Stella away from her husband. Stanley does not forget of this act of interference and makes him all the more determined to be rid of Stella’s “charity case”. The real reason for Stanley’s bulling is that Blanche immediately received all Stella’s attention. “How about my supper huh? I’m not going to no Galatorires’ for supper” This made Stella dominant in power over Stanley and Blanche, something Stanley was not used to. “I put you a cold plate on ice”.

The most ostentatious of the group, Stanley is a flawed man that is forced into the role of husband and father by the women around him. Stanley enjoys avoiding his real life and problems by socializing with his other equally macho friends playing poker and drinking excessive amounts of alcohol which in turn makes him stereotypically violent towards his wife. Stanley’s actions to Blanche as well are possessive and domineering as he looks through her things and criticizes the gifts she has garnered from the various suitors she had. “After Stanley's rummaging around in the trunk, Blanche exclaims: "It looks like my trunk has exploded" (38). When he violates that space - "Stanley crosses to the trunk, shoves it roughly open, and begins to open compartments" (41) - he betrays Blanche's intimacy. Rapaciously investigating the love letters, "He rips off the ribbon and starts to examine them, Blanche snatches them from him, and they cascade to the floor." Furious, she shouts: "Now that you've touched them, I'll burn them" and then starts scooping "the floor, gathering

The reader may view Blanche as someone who tried to escape her sordid past in Laurel and wanted to start a new life with her sister, yet due to the continuous investigations from Stanley, was unable to do so. Stanley reveals Blanches’ lies and deceits, commenting on them as her ‘same old act, same old hooey!’ This tells the reader that his research of Blanches’ past is way of stopping her from finding a new life. Blanche attempts to redeem her life by finding love with Mitch, yet Stanley again reveals to Mitch that she was not ‘straight’, resulting in Mitch not wanting to be with her and also contributing to her fate. Stanley, after mercilessly divulging all her truths and bringing her to the edge of her mental capacity, rapes Blanche which brought about her final collapse. The reader may view Stella as someone at blame for her sisters’ fate, as though she shows some moral support of Blanches’ situation and listens to what she has to say, Stella continuously throughout the play neglects to notice Blanches slow mental deterioration and ignores Blanches’ outcries and incessant need for attention. Stella chooses Stanley over Blanche, despite her warnings about him being ‘volatile, violent and sub-human which represents not

Similar to Stanley, Blanche also faces a power struggle. Her ultimate downfall is a result of Stanley’s cruelty and lack of understanding for human fragility. Comments about Stanley’s ‘animal habits’ and ‘sub-human’ nature act as the agent of Blanche’s downfall. Stanley cannot deal with her mocking him in his own home and is fed up with her lies. During the final scenes his

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

Her passivity is shown on several occasions throughout the play. Blanche constantly commands Stella, ‘I like to wait on you Blanche’ , and this shows that Stella is considered inferior to Blanche. Moreover, her submissiveness is shown when Stanley hits here at scene three, this action is shown through stage directions ‘Stanley charges after Stella (…). There is a sound of a blow’. If Stella was a strong-willed character instead of a passive and submissive one she would have left Stanley for what he had done, but she chose to continue suffering domestic violence. In addition, it may be argued that her financial dependency on her husband is also one of the reasons she continues with her husband, this is linked to the Marxist theory as this the economic class of the character affects her personality and action. In addition, her subordination is also linked to a satisfying sexual life, ‘But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark – that sort of make everything else seem – unimportant.’ This is linked to the Freudian theory as it shows that sexual pleasure affects her decision to keep tolerating Stanley’s abuse. The representation of Stella as the subordinating submissive housewife is a representation of the women in the 1940s, who lived in a patriarchal society and in some occasions suffered domestic