...The intense desire for power is a feeling that many human beings may have. In Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, the theme of power is very evident throughout the play. Stanley Kowalski’s hunger for power has led him to violence. He is a man who takes pride in what he does and his role as the head of his household. His brutal and abusive attitude is one that readers are made aware of the moment he comes into the scene. In the first seen he is seen hurling raw meat to his wife showing his animalistic approach to life. All of his authority is put into question when Stella’s sister Blanche comes over for a stay. Always Stanley’s power upon others is served with a side of violence. In scene three we witness what happens when he feels that he is losing power. Stanley has been losing money from the poker playing and needs to save face with his buddies. He complains that that the women are talking too loudly, and then complains again when Blanche turns on the radio. He gets up and switches it off himself. Blanche, who obviously doesn’t see Stanley as a threat, turns it back on and begins to waltz with Mitch. Then Stanley who has been drinking takes the radio and hurls it out the window as a sign of superiority and putting his foot down. When Stella tells his friends to leave he chases her and beats her. Stanley has been losing money from the poker playing and needs to save face with his buddies....
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...Orlando Davies-Vannelli Tennessee Williams maintained that he couldn't write any story unless, "there is at least one character in it for whom I have a physical dewire." In the light of this comment, discuss the role of desire in the play. There are many moments in the play 'A Streetcar Named Desire' where Blanche DuBois and desire are inextricably linked. Indeed, she arrives in Elysian Fields after taking a streetcar named desire. One critic has said that the journey which Blanche takes to get to her sisters apartment on a streetcar named Desire and and then changing to a streetcar named Cemetries reflects her overall journey through life. For example, in her youth she rode on her desires and during as well as after the play takes place, she changes to a morbid route, described as "Cemetries". In some sense, her quest for desire was as short lived as her tram ride. Another moment where the idea of desire is evident is when Stanley tells Stella that "I (he) am the king around here, so don't forget it." which reflecs his desire to have power and control over everyone in his 'domain'. This is one moment in the play where Stanley's true controlling ideas are shown to the audience. Through Stanley, Williams presents us with the idea that he is one who has achieved his desrie of being unnapposed in his society. An example of this is at the end of the play where Stanley isn't held accountable for a crime he has committed (the rape of Blanche) and his life goes back to how it was...
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...[Insert hook] In the Pulitzer Prize - winning play, A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, the author uses many literary criticisms, such as feminism, marxism, and psychoanalytical, to enhance the importance of each character's actions in order to create a masterpiece that consumes you instantly. Feminism is the most prominent literary criticism within A Streetcar Named Desire. Patriarchy is seen repeatedly in almost all of the interactions Stanley has with his wife Stella and her sister Blanche. In scene two of the play Stella doesn’t want Blanche around when Stanley has his poker night so she tells Stanley, “I'm taking Blanche to Galatoire's for supper and then to a show, because it's your pok'r night.” (Williams 32) and he replies, “How about my supper, huh? I'm not going to no Galatoire's for supper!” (Williams 32) to her. This portrays feminism because Stella knows that Blanche would call...
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...I wonder what the driving force is within Stella’s marriage to Stanley Kowalski. Stella Kowalski abandons her aristocratic upbringings to live in unholy matrimony with Stanley Kowalski in the slums of New Orleans. Perhaps Stella’s lack of independence from her pampered past is the driving force within her marriage because Stella cannot survive the real world without Stanley. On the other hand, Stella and Stanley’s marriage could simply be built on a foundation of sexual desire. Their sexual relationship with one another is the most important aspect of the Kowalski’s relationship. The fact that Stella has declared her attraction to Stanley’s sexual aggression and the knowledge that Stanley’s violent aggression undertones sexuality leads the readers to believe that the latter statement suits the Kowalski’s marriage best. Therefore, it can be reasoned that the driving force within Stella’s marriage to Stanley Kowlaski is not Stella’s dependence upon her husband, but rather Stella and Stanley’s carnal desire for one another....
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...Mélanie Urvoy English 102-005 13 February 2012 Research paper A Conflict as a Poker Game In the early twentieth century, women were still dependent on men. It was difficult for a woman to have a job and be financially independent. In addition, at this time, women had to keep their virginity to have a chance to get married. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is placed in the picturesque French Quarter in New Orleans. The play starts when Blanche DuBois comes in New Orleans to visit her sister Stella after she lost the family plantation Belle-Reve because of money problems. She then meets her brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski, a World War II veteran. As soon as they meet each other, a mistrustful rivalry starts between them. A Streetcar Named Desire depicts the conflict between two opposing views as a poker game between Blanche and Stanley for control. From the beginning of the play, Williams starts distinguishing Stanley and Blanche by their mentalities. In fact, Blanche has the Old South mentality. She grew up in a plantation where she learnt how to behave as an aristocrat whereas her brother-in-law is an industrial and a Polish immigrant representing the New South. Blanche is described as delicate and fragile whereas Stanley is rude and violent. Blanche lives in a world of illusion. She acts as a queen and wants the men to treat her like it. Unlike Blanche, Stanley lives in a rude world, a world where if a person are strong enough physically and mentally, he...
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...Stanley Kowalski is a distinguished character in the play A Streetcar Named Desire, he is Stella’s husband, (a women which is from an upper class family) however he comes from a very different and less elegant background, than both Stella and Blanche (Stella’s older sister). We can tell this from the first impression Blanche give ‘Where were you? In bed with your Polack!’ this shows the clear lack of respect that Blanche has not only towards Stanley but towards Polish people and people of a lower class, we know that Blanche shows no guilt in what she has just said as she said it in such a shocking and shameful gesture, she is also clearly referring to him as a ‘lower class working man’. In Scene 1, Stanley is shown as having ‘animal joy’ and being a ‘richly feathered male bird’ this shows his superiority and this is also shown in most of his conversations that he has with his friends and wife, Stanley is typically the dominant speaker, he refuses to accept that someone tells him that his actions are wrong and he shows this throughout the play when he uses Stella’s upper class status against her by mentioning his ‘Napoleonic code’ meaning that everything that his wife owns, or partly owns is his. This shows that his character is very dominant and has an aggressive side to him. Stanley’s ‘animal joy’ can also show us that he has animalistic qualities for example when in scene three (the poker scene), Stanley and Blanche have a disagreement about the radio playing out loud, Blanche...
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...In A Streetcar Named Desire the word animal has changed drastically. Throughout the play Blanche calls and describes Stanley as an Animal. As the play progressed Blanche became more and more disgusted with Stanley. In the beginning Blanche walks in with Stella as Stanley and his friends are playing poker and says “Drunk-drunk animal-thing you! All of you please go home! If any of you have one spark of decency in you.” This description of an animal is very weak compared to the others. She calls him an animal because he is drunk, saying whatever he wants and being very rude. It then escalates to Blanche saying “He acts like an animal, has an animal’s habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one!” Blanche is now completely disgusted with Stanley. Everything he does is like an animal, eat, walk, talk, etc. Later on in the play Blanche even goes further and describes him as uncivilized. Blanche says “Thousands and thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is-Stanley Kowalski-survivor of the Stone Age!” This is a very powerful quote. It shows how Blanche has changed her opinion on Stanley and the meaning of the word animal. The word animal has gone from a word used to describe a drunken fool to an uncivilized animal. Towards the end of the play Stanley says “well he’s not going to marry her. Maybe he was, but he’s not going to jump in a tank with a school of sharks-now!” Stanley is talking to Stella about why Mitch didn’t show up for Blanche. He is talking...
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...In Tennessee Williams’ play, A Streetcar Named Desire, the main antagonist, Stanley Kowalski, can only be described as down-to-earth and brutish. This is unquestionable, and is evident numerous times throughout the play. Stanley serves as the antithesis to Blanche who, in turn, is quiet, fragile, and deceitful. The conflict in the play arises from Blanche’s arrival to the Kowalski’s residence and is a direct result from the meeting of these two contrasting characters. As such, it is perhaps not difficult to see that the motivations for most of Stanley’s defining actions in the play stem from Blanche who, from his point of view, is just a disruptive presence that doesn’t belong and only serves to annoy him. Blanche’s occupancy, coupled with Stanley’s dominant personality, is the basis for his multiple signs of aggression and assertion in the play. Stanley, as is so often claimed by Blanche, is simple. His motivations throughout the play aren’t very complex: he wants to be able to do what he wants, and to maintain control while he’s at it. Stanley is evidently an alpha male; if someone is doing something that he doesn’t approve of, whether it makes sense or not, he’s going to disagree. This makes it very easy to understand his actions. Blanche came uninvited into his home – the place where Stanley dominates. This already puts their relationship off to a bad start. Throughout the play Blanche made changes to his home as well as ripples in his relationship with Stella. Stanley...
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...------------------------------------------------- Analysis of Major Characters Blanche DuBois When the play begins, Blanche is already a fallen woman in society’s eyes. Her family fortune and estate are gone, she lost her young husband to suicide years earlier, and she is a social pariah due to her indiscrete sexual behavior. She also has a bad drinking problem, which she covers up poorly. Behind her veneer of social snobbery and sexual propriety, Blanche is an insecure, dislocated individual. She is an aging Southern belle who lives in a state of perpetual panic about her fading beauty. Her manner is dainty and frail, and she sports a wardrobe of showy but cheap evening clothes. Stanley quickly sees through Blanche’s act and seeks out information about her past. In the Kowalski household, Blanche pretends to be a woman who has never known indignity. Her false propriety is not simply snobbery, however; it constitutes a calculated attempt to make herself appear attractive to new male suitors. Blanche depends on male sexual admiration for her sense of self-esteem, which means that she has often succumbed to passion. By marrying, Blanche hopes to escape poverty and the bad reputation that haunts her. But because the chivalric Southern gentleman savior and caretaker (represented by Shep Huntleigh) she hopes will rescue her is extinct, Blanche is left with no realistic possibility of future happiness. As Blanche sees it, Mitch is her only chance for contentment, even though he...
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...The Broadway Version Significance:- When Tennessee Williams made the decision to take Big Daddy, the pivotal personality of Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, off stage for the entire final act of the play, it was a bold choice, so bold a choice, in fact, that the original Broadway director, Kazan, forced Williams to rewrite the last act to fix it. | | | | | | | | | After their long association Williams greatly respected Kazan, and trusted his instincts. Williams writes in the explanatory note of the published edition of the play that a playwright can hand a director an absolute final play without allowing him access to drafts, or he can find a director who will cave to the writer's every request – and neither is desirable. In Kazan, Williams said, he had found a director he could trust to give perceptive and meaningful notes early on in the process. And Kazan had major reservations about the first completed draft of the play, the one that is still printed in published editions. As summed up by Williams in his explanatory note, these reservations were: 1) Big Daddy was too vivid and important a character to disappear from the play 2) The character of Brick should under go some apparent mutation as a result of the virtual vivisection that he undergoes in his interview with his father in Act Two. 3) The character of Margaret should be, if possible, more clearly sympathetic to the audience. Williams did not agree with these edits – especially the second...
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...Where is the Light? Tennessee Williams uses light, and the absence of light in A Streetcar Named Desire to show the relationship between truths and hidden realities. The role of the absence of light is best seen in the relationship between Mitch and Blanche and how Blanche shies away from light in order to hide her age from Mitch, and in a more subtle attempt to hide her past and the reality of what actually happened in Laurel. The most literal “hiding” that occurs is Blanche’s hiding of her real age; she refuses to let Mitch see her in full light as she does not want him to know that she is older than she says she is, by hiding in the shadows she hopes to hide her wrinkles and her fading youth from Mitch. Her not allowing Mitch to see her in full light also plays a more meaningful role in the text, she is hiding her past from him, the details of her previous marriage and the fact that her first husband was homosexual and killed himself because of how she reacted to that fact. She is also hiding her history of being banished from the town due to her scandalous escapades at the Flamingo Hotel; she attempts to portray herself as a very well mannered, upstanding women....
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...A Street Car Named Desire Tennessee Williams suggests that Blanche represents the faded American past in a few different ways. One way is her difficulty fitting in with life in New Orleans. New Orleans is a modern urbanized city unlike Laurel, which is a small rural town where Blanche comes from. Blanche's life is crumbling just like the old south is crumbling. Blanche and Stanley were in two completely separate and different worlds, which caused major conflicts between the two. The biggest conflict is between illusion and realism. Blanche lives her life avoiding the truth and trying to erase her past. She lives for how things should to be, not for how they are. She prefers magic and shadows to facing facts in bright light as she says "I don’t want realism. I want magic". A lot of the things she does are to make her feel pure which she is not. She blames herself for the death of her husband and therefore constantly bathes to cleanse herself of her past. Blanche also doesn't accept the fact that she is getting older. She stays away from lights because "electric light bulbs go on and you see too plainly" and she does not want people, in this case Mitch, to see what she actually looks like. Stanley looks at the world as it is and not what he wants it to be. He doesn't buy into all of the things that Blanche says. When Blanche said that she lost Belle Reve, Stanley didn't trust her because she didn't have any proof. We see he didn't trust her when he said "In the state of...
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...Censorship in A Streetcar Named Desire Author of A Streetcar Named Desire - Tennessee Williams - stated that his plays are “Pleas for the understanding of delicate people”. A Streetcar Named Desire explores dysfunctional relationships and conflicts that arise in the breakdown. The 1930’s production code forced Kazan - director of A Streetcar Named Desire - to change the original text. The censors of the Breen Office forced Kazan to omit the film’s raw and candid portrayal of human behavior and relationships. Because the Breen Office controlled of the film industry, it definitely took away the audience’s understanding of the characters and their relationships especially in Stella’s descending of the staircase, dialogue between Blanche and Stella,...
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...The overshadowing theme of wealth depicts how the setting influenced the characters and the playwrights context. In A Streetcar Named Desire, the Dubois family came from a very wealthy aristocrat family but after many generations, the money ran out. The day after Blanche encountered Stanley’s anger episode, she went looking for Stella because she went back to him even after he beat her. Stella wakes up the next day as if nothing has happened while Blanche is planning all sorts of ways to leave. In the middle of her speech, Stella says, “I know how it helps your morale just having a little pocket-money on you” (Williams 4.79). Although money cannot buy you happiness, in this play, it seems like money can buy Blanche some confidence. She loves...
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...Characters Blanche DeBois: * Around the age of 30 * from Mississippi, an aging southern belle(panics about her fading beauty) * lost Belle Reve(DeBpis family home) and her young husband(gay, she announced her disgust at his homosexuality suicide marks the end of Blanche’s sexual innocence) * drinking problem * Stella’s older sister * moves into the Kowalski home in New Orleans * destitute * has had many lovers (strong sexual urges) self-esteem depends on many for happiness * avoids reality(snobbery hide her poverty and indignity) * throughout the play her self-image and sanity crumble End: Stanley rapes her(destroys rest of mental and sexual esteem) and commits her to an asylum Stella Kowalski: * Around the age of 25 * Blanche’s younger sister * Mild character * Married to Stanley Kowalski (robust sexual relationship violent and renewing) and pregnant * Torn between her sister and her husband (stands by Stanley in the end) Stanley Kowalski: * Stella’s husband * Working-class * Example of vital force * Loyal to friends (Steve, Pablo, Mitch), passionate to Stella, cruel to Blanche * Polish ancestry( represents new heterogeneous America Blanche doesn’t belong to them, she is from an old social hierachy) * Fought in WW2 * Wishes to destroy Blanche’s social life * Beats his wife and rapes Blanche (BUT no remorse and still the proud family man) * Doesn’t like Blanche because...
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