Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Williams, on his thought-to-be death bed wrote this play to “say what needed to be said”. The deaths of Blanche’s husband caused by his sexual desires have brought Blanche to a low point in her life. This and other death of family has resulted Blanche from a once luxurious lifestyle, to poverty. Her own promiscuous sexual desires, her sleeping with a student, destroy her reputation as a professional and leads to the rape by Stanley. Stanley claims he is only providing what they have felt for each other all along.

However, it is not just Blanche who is pragmatic at points. Mitch seeks for stability in his life too, since he admits how he worries for his mother, and how his mother worries about him being lonely when she dies, and not settling down – Blanche is his chance to form a family.

Williams uses a different type of savagery in Blanche's character. Blanche is more deceptive and exaggerated than Stanley, trying to hide the effects of her hard life from others through constant bathing, avoiding bright lights and by lying, and from herself, by drinking.

Established as one of the most prolific playwrights of the 20th century, Tennessee Williams used his writing as a form of therapy. The author came from a troubled background consisting of alcoholism, mental breakdowns, and general unhappiness; Williams exploited these unfortunate events and allowed them to motivate his literature. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois’ struggles represent the reality of people’s lives, “an enduring concern of [Williams’] throughout his writing career (Henthorne 1). Blanche captures our focus with her seemingly sincere and fragile nature, but it is later revealed that this is just an illusion within her own mind. She resides in a world of fantasy to shield herself against the harsh threats of reality and her own fears. Blanche’s main objective in the play is to keep herself from falling apart in a world of cruelty through alcoholism and illusion. Through the characterization of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams depicts the coping mechanism of fantasy and its detrimental repercussions by exploring the specific experiences that eventually impede her happiness.

Unlike Stanley, Mitch has learned to be sympathetic towards Blanche and her representation of femininity. Mitch however, still cultivates toxic masculinity when he does not bring correction to his friend, Stanley, when he sees him being openly abusive. He also allows Stanley to ruin his chances at happiness with Blanche.

Blanche is unable to cope with her loss of her fortunes and estate at Bell Reve, and the abrupt social shift erupted after World War Two, and this inability to adapt shapes her ultimate anagorisis. In addition, Blanche’s botched relationship with Allen Gray and his subsequent suicide were in all likelihood even larger catalysts for her plunge into delusion. In addition to having a more externally-catalyzed delusion, Blanche more selectively and maliciously employs her delusion. Williams continually points this out throughout the play with profuse use of a metaphorical light to represent truth. The employment of this metaphor reveals to Blanche’s fear of the truth, shown in “…turn that over-light off. I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare!” The clear link to Willy Loman here is that both characters refuse to hear the truth in fear of what it might destroy, whereas in actual fact only through letting go of the past will they reach a true stage of final

Mitch has a very courteous and gregarious perspective on life. He basically believes that everyone deserves a chance. When he first meets Blanche, he begins to fall in love with her but soon after Stanley reveals the true Blanche to Mitch, he feels betrayed. At that point, his perspective changed because, he begins to become a little more like Stanley. An example of this is when he finds out and comes to meet Blanche and tells her

He abuses his wife Stella physically and emotionally as he strikes and hits his pregnant wife while Stella represents the self-deprecating, submissive wife who tolerates and excuses her husband behavior. Another central theme in Williams’ play is the theme of illusion; Blanche lives in a fantasy world of sentimental illusion. She exerts efforts to maintain the appearance of being an upper-class young innocent woman, even though she is a fallen woman. Another theme is the theme of loneliness as Blanche is lost and alone in the world and she desperately seeks protection and companionship in the arms of strangers. Mitch is another character who is a victim of loneliness and he needs to find a woman to love him the way his mother does. The theme of sexual desire is related to destruction. Blanche wants to be a lady but she continually tripped up by her sexual desire. Stanley leads a violent brutal desire and views Stella as a sexual object and his final act as he rapes Blanche emphasizes his lustful desire. The theme of hatred is prevailed throughout the play as Blanche’s insult and insolence aroused the hatred of Stanley. The play focused on the feeling of repulsion between

Harold Mitchell or Mitch is the best friend and old war buddy of Stanley Kowalski, he is shown to have little confidence but a big heart. Mitch is a lost soul, he was in love to a girl who passed away. He’s been looking for a new romance ever since the audience first see him within the play, he wants to find love before his mother passes away. His actions to seduce Blanche were noble at first, but afterwards we see his selfish motivations

One of the play’s main characters, Blanche, has by no means had an easy adulthood. She has had to deal with her sister setting off to New Orleans with her new husband, the death of her father, losing her own husband, and the loss of their family’s beloved plantation, Belle Reve. With all of this going on, Blanche disguises her pain and delusion, and pretends that is does not exist. In a way,

Blanche deals with many issues the loss of loved ones, the loss of the family estate, the inability to deal with reality, rejection from others, and the rape by Stanley. Blanche has also become independent and assertive which is not the typical norm of a southern woman. She has been forced into a world she is not prepared for. Because of this Blanche begins to live in her own world, her own little fantasy. She also uses alcohol and sexual promiscuity to escape from the loneliness she has endured since her husband’s death. Williams shows us through the way Blanche speaks to the paper boy;

This is particularly utilised during Scene 10, where Williams establishes the lighting use through stage directions: 'lurid reflections appear on the walls around Blanche. The shadows are of a grotesque and menacing form'. This lighting choice suggests expressionist influences in the play, as they enable a visual representation of what may be Blanche's state of mind. These reflections, that are described as moving ‘sinuously as flames’, may be suggesting Blanche feels trapped in a 'grotesque and menacing' world that she has no control in. The appearance of flames may have been used to represent how one event (the death of her Husband) has caused a ripple effect across Blanche's entire life, she is her life has been almost entirely destroyed.

In his plays, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams uses different ways to show in the play of social realism. It show each of individual character and focusing on how particular way of viewpoint contrast with men, and the perspective of looking at women. The play explores struggle of two character Stanley and Blanche, between appearances and reality which made the play’s plot more affected reality. Throughout this play, it show the symbolize of the gender roles and the power of men over women in the 1940’s in New Orleans.

While Blanche represents hope of women being able to be free and outspoken, however she also represents the idea that women are very dependent on men for everything. The idea of representing Blanche to be both proper and improper with the society’s rules and regulations is because Williams may have wanted to prove the idea that despite being independent, women will still somehow be dependent on men. Stella represents the submissive nature of women during that time period and is conveyed to be a submissive character, as Williams wanted her to represent what society thinks of women that time. Williams ultimately represents these women in this way in order to infer to the message of shattered dreams, which A Streetcar Named Desire also

Initially, Stanley believes Blanche has sold her and Stella’s family estate without giving Stella her cut of the profit. Stanley’s feels that his power is threatened as he believes he is being cheated by Blanche and brings up the Napoleonic code which states that a wife and husband’s belongings are shared. Stanley tells Stella, “… and when you’re swindled under the Napoleonic code I’m swindled too. And I don’t like to be swindled” (Williams, 33). Stanley explains to Stella how if she loses money through Blanche, the code states that he loses the money too due to the sharing of possessions between spouses. This is where we first see Stanley’s desire for power and control as it is seen that he becomes angry with the fact that Blanche potentially manipulates him. In many scenes of the play, Stanley’s assertiveness and need for control is seen through his actions. In scene eight of the play, Stella is angered by Stanley’s actions at the dinner table and demands that he wash up and help clear the table. Angered by Stella’s demands, Stanley feels that Blanche and Stella see him as weak. His desire to regain his power and control takes over as he states, “…And I am the king around here, so don’t forget it! (He hurls a