The story of the play A Streetcar named Desire focuses on love. The research centers on Blanche DuBois’ lies. The research includes determining why Blanche DuBois lied.
The street car named desire shows, in a certain sense, Blanche is a liar. In a sense, Blanche is a liar. Blanche DuBois gave several lies to hide her true situation in life. Blanche DuBois never stated that she is a drunkard. Likewise, Blanche DuBois hid under a life of delusions of grandeur (Williams 79).
As a girl wanting love, Blanche DuBois would lie in order to make herself attractive to male suitors (Williams 40). The lies included creating a false historical life of Blanche DuBois. Just like the women of today’s generation, most women would go to the extent of hiding their unfavorable past in order to attract the male members of the community.
Normally, women would hide their past love failures from their current suitors (Shea 17). Likewise, Blanche DuBois lied about her school job (Williams 81). She falsely stated that her school administrators had allowed her to have a vacation in order to calm her nerves. In reality, Blanche DuBois had been fired from her teaching job. She was fired for having sexual relations with her 17 year old student.
Having sexual relations with students is banned in schools. One of the school policies is for teachers to responsibly take their roles as the students’ second parents. Blanche DuBois hid her teaching past to prevent hurting her sister Stella from the humiliation of having a sister fired from her teaching job.
Blanche DuBois also lied by not telling about her failed marriage. Blanche DuBois was married to Allan Grey. Their marriage finally failed when she uncovered her husband had a homosexual affair. She did not tell the truth that her husband, Allan Grey, committed suicide (Williams 76). Everyone deserves another chance.
Blanche DuBois travelled to her sister Stella’s home in order to bury her unfavorable marriage behind. In addition, Blanche DuBois created a world of lies. Blanche DuBois did not tell the truth by creating a world filled with fantasies and illusions (Williams 132). The fantasies and illusions crept into and became part of Blanche DuBois’ real life environment.
After Stanley uncovers Blanche DuBois’ lies, Stanley forces her out of their home in order to avoid bringing shame to the Stella household. Refusing to leave Stella’s home, Stanley rapes Blanche DuBois and calls the mental hospital to extract Blanche DuBois from the Stella household and treat her in the community’s mental hospital. The husband of Blanche’s sister, Stanley, uncovers her true secrets (Williams 79).
Stanley uncovers Blanche’s lies when Stanley’s friend brings news to Stanley about Blanche DuBois’ true life in Laurel. Laurel is the hometown of Blanche DuBois. Consequently, the uncovered lies infuriated Stanley.
The discovery of the lies discourages everyone. Stanley’s reporting to his best friend, Mitchell, the new discovery of Blanche DuBois’ prior unfavorable character in Blanche DuBois’ Laurel community discourages Mitchell. After hearing Stanley’s report about Blanche Dubois’ unfavorable past, Mitchell immediately drops his prior marriage promise to Blanche DuBois (Williams 73).
Based on the above discussion, the story of the play A Streetcar named Desire centers on love in general. The lies of Blanche DuBois were concocted to win male suitors. The research centers on Blanche DuBois’ past Laurel life creeping into Blanche DuBois’ current community life. Indeed, the play Streetcar named Desire shows Blanche DuBois lies to win male suitors.
Works Cited
Shea, Rosemary O’. A Streetcar Named Desire. New York: Insight Press, 2011. Print.
Williams, Tenessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. New York: Heinemann Press, 1995. Print.
In his chef-d’oeuvre play, A Streetcar named Desire, Tennessee Williams explores how reality works to counter the escapist illusions that people create and use to dodge the harsh realities of life. The majority of people resort to fantasy after life becomes unbearable; unfortunately, such illusions only lead to self-destruction as laws govern the universe as opposed to chance and luck. Blanche DuBois’ illusions and her unrelenting quest to escape the reality as espoused by Stanley leads her to insanity.
Williams uses this opportunity to show that fantasy cannot overcome the reality irrespective of how one tries. Williams’ view towards the ideas of illusion and reality works to highlight the fact that reality will always overcome fantasy and the two cannot coexist peacefully, and while we cannot completely admire Stanley in his totally honest and brutal state, we can align ourselves with Blanche and her web of manipulations and lies.
After Blanche loses everything in her life, she resorts to fantasy as an escapist attempt to avoid confronting the harsh realities of her new status. Just like Blanche, people resort to fantasies when faced with seemingly insurmountable situations. Busch posits, “The fear that good objects have been destroyed leads to a fantasy of being alone with bad objects, adding to depressive feelings” (272). Similarly, Blanche responds to her crisis in the same manner. After losing her husband and Belle Reve, she does not have anything left in her life, and thus she resorts to fantasies as a way of dealing with her loss (Berkman 251).
In scene nine she admits, “I don’t want realism, I want magic” (Williams 117). Magic in this context can only be actualized through a fantasy, which explains why and how Blanche survives. Throughout the human history, people yearn to live in a world of plenty, free of pain, and full of bliss coupled with happiness. Unfortunately, Williams sends an awakening call to humanity that inasmuch as people want to live in a world of their creation, they have to wake up from their dreams and face the vagaries of the real world (Hawkins 27). Unfortunately, people do not accept this fact and in most cases, they resort to self-justification.
In scene two Blanche consoles herself by noting, “I know I fib a good deal. After all, a woman’s charm is fifty percent illusion” (Williams 41). When individuals cannot realize their full potential, they settle for mediocrity. Gilbert adds that due to laziness and lack of proper tools, individuals settle for the ‘available’ instead of striving to get the best, thus spiraling into mediocrity (84). Williams understood this aspect perfectly, which explains why he designs Blanche in this manner. In most cases, the deluded person cannot understand the reality and thus s/he chides those that embrace the reality. For instance, Blanche cannot understand why Stella goes back to her husband after a fight (Hovis 178). She nags Stella to call Shep Huntleigh, the millionaire fantasy boyfriend.
Williams uses Stanley’s realistic view of life as a contrast to Blanche’s illusions to indicate that the two aspects, viz. fantasy and reality cannot coexist peacefully. Right from the beginning, Blanche is at loggerheads with Stanley (Vlasopolos 334). He starts by pointing to the possibility that Blanche conned Stella of her inheritance by selling the Belle Reve. Stanley works tirelessly to expose Blanche’s lies and her dark past. As aforementioned, Williams uses Stanley purposely as a symbol of reality and Blanche to represent illusions (Rogoff 81).
Therefore, the reality always haunts fantasies just as Stanley haunts Blanche. No matter how one tries to run away from the reality, it will always find him or her. Stanley succeeds in getting information concerning Blanche’s past and he exposes her lies even to Mitch, the prospective boyfriend. Ultimately, in the battle between reality and fantasy, the former triumphs, just as Stanley conquers Blanche (Mood 10). At one point, Stanley is determined to get rid of Blanche. In scene seven Stanley asserts, “She’s not stayin’ here after Tuesday. You know that, don’t you? Just to make sure I bought her a ticket myself.
A bus ticket! She’ll go! Period. P.S. She’ll go Tuesday!” (Williams 104). This assertion qualifies the argument that reality and fantasy cannot co-exist peacefully and for peace to prevail, one has to leave and given that reality is permanent, fantasy must leave. In the final move to assert his preeminence and authority, Stanley rapes Blanche. In her masterpiece book, Recovering from Rape, Ledray notes that rape “is the most undignified thing that can happen to a woman, it is the ultimate loss of a woman’s battles” (103). Similarly, Stanley’s rape signifies that reality will ultimately overcome fantasy and if need be, the end of the battle between the two will be undignified.
However, Williams insinuates that irrespective of the shortcomings of fantasy, it is an indispensable tool of dealing with the harsh realities of the world. As the play ends, Blanche draws back to her fantasies and this aspect insulates her from the vagaries of reality (Dace 938). Even though Blanche seemingly loses her mind, her fantasies convince her that she is leaving to meet her millionaire boyfriend. In addition, she consoles herself by telling the doctor, “Whoever you are—I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” (Williams 142).
This kind of approach towards life helps the majority of people to wade through the murky waters of the unkind world that they live in during their sojourn on earth. Instead of facing the reality and probably having a nervous breakdown, Williams uses Blanche’s unrelenting fantasies to show that it helps to fantasize (Fleche 499). We can align ourselves with Blanche. We all have our misgivings in life and when a disaster strikes, we shrink back to our secret fantasies where we see life from the perspective of how it should be as opposed to how it is. In a recap, Williams is saying that fantasy is not an evil thing after all as it offers Blanche an escape route from the harsh realities of life. Even though Blanche is defeated in every dimension, she soldiers on and maybe she recovers from her defeats to face a better tomorrow.
In the play, A Streetcar named Desire, Williams endeavors to prove that reality will always overcome fantasy. Blanche resorts to fantasies in a bid to escape from the reality that she had lost her husband and inheritance; however, Stanley as a representative of reality in the play, does not give her peace of mind. They two are always in conflict with Stanley working hard to expose Blanche’s lies. Ultimately, the reality conquers fantasies and Williams uses Blanche’s rape ordeal to certify this assertion. However, given that Blanche does not give up at the end of the play, Williams wants the audience to know that fantasies offer a good way of dealing with the harsh realities of life. Given that the real life is cruel, the audience can align itself with Blanche and at least identify with her lies and fantasies as survival mechanism.
Works Cited
Berkman, Leonard. “The Tragic Downfall of Blanche DuBois.” Modern Drama 10.3 (1967): 249-257. Print.
Busch, Fredric. “Anger and Depression.” Advances in Psychiatric Treatment 15.3 (2009): 271-278. Print.
Dace, Tish. “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Reference Guide to American Literature. Ed. Jim Kamp. Ed. Detroit, St. James Press, 1994. 937-68. Print.
Fleche, Anne. “The Space of Madness and Desire: Tennessee Williams and Streetcar.” Modern Drama 38.4(1995): 496-509. Print.
Gilbert, Randy. Success Bound: Breaking free of Mediocrity, Mount Jackson: Bargain Publishers, 2001. Print.
Hawkins, Williams. “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Critical Essays on Tennessee Williams. Ed. Robert Martin. New York, Twayne Publishers, 1997. 27-28. Print.
Hovis, George. “Fifty Percent Illusion: The Mask of the Southern Belle in Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, and ‘Portrait of a Madonna’.” Tennessee Williams – Updated Edition. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: InfoBase Publishing, 2007. 177-179. Print.
Ledray, Linda. Recovering From Rape, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1994. Print.
Mood, John. “The Structure of A Streetcar Named Desire.” Ball State University Forum 14.3 (1973): 9-10. Print.
Rogoff, Gorgon. “The Restless Intelligence of Tennessee Williams.” The Tulane Drama Review 10.4 (1966): 78-92. Print.
Vlasopolos, Anca. “Authorizing History: Victimization in A Streetcar Named Desire.” Theatre Journal 38.3 (1986): 334-35. Print.
Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire, New York: Signet Books, 1951. Print.
The play A Streetcar Named Desire written by Tennessee Williams raises several questions about gender roles and identity which are relevant even nowadays. The main character of this literary work Blanche DuBois cannot see herself as an independent and self-sufficient person.
In her opinion, the life of a woman is impossible without men’s company support. She is not willing or able to change her perceptions about gender roles. This paper will compare Tennessee Williams’ play with a work of contemporary cinematography, namely the film, The Devil Wears Prada. It is necessary to show how these two works explore gender roles. This comparison can show how social norms and values have evolved since the time Tennessee Williams was writing this play.
First of all, Tennessee Williams describes Blanche as a person who is extremely sensitive about her age. She avoids any conversations about it and becomes very suspicious when someone asks her how old she is. She is extremely concerned about the fading of her beauty, and even tries to console herself by saying that “Physical beauty is passing.
A transitory possession. But beauty of the mind and richness of the spirit aren’t taken away, but grow!” (Williams, 108). Still, Blanche focuses only on men’s opinion about her. For example, when Mitch asks her how old she is, Blanche immediately becomes anxious and tries to find out what he thinks about her (Williams, 74).
In Blanche’s opinion, beauty is the true value of a woman since it enables her to win recognition of men. In his play Tennessee Williams was able to show how men of that time viewed women and how some women regarded themselves.
At this point, we need to compare Blanch with Miranda Priestly the protagonist of the film The Devil Wears Prada. This character deliberately tries to distance herself from the opposite sex. She attempts to show that she is a self-sufficient person who does not require men’s support.
More importantly, she even tries to conceal the moments when she feels weak and vulnerable. Blanche DuBois would not have understood or accepted such behavior. So, to some extent, this example shows that gender roles and perceptions have been transformed. Conventional belief in female vulnerability and dependence is no longer acceptable for modern women.
Yet, this movie also indicates that some common gender stereotypes are still prevalent in the modern society. For example, one can surely mention Andrea Sachs. Her friends and relatives accuse her of paying too much attention to her career and overlooking their needs.
Their discontent with her reaches the highest point when she misses the birthday of her boyfriend. In their opinion, this careerism is not suitable for a woman. Such an opinion was particular popular when Tennessee Williams was writing his play, and we cannot say that it has completely disappeared nowadays. In comparison with Blanche, Miranda and Andrea are much more empowered, they still have to struggle with sexual stereotypes.
The main difference between Blanche DuBois and these characters lies in their attitude toward the opposite sex. Blanche believes that a woman can hardly exist for men unless she is not the object of their sexual desires. She says, “Men don’t even admit your existence unless their making love to you.
And you’ve got to have your existence admitted by someone, if you’re going to have someone’s protection” (Williams 60). This statement is the main principle to which she adheres to. She fully acknowledges her dependence on the opposite sex, and such situation is quite acceptable for her. In part, her worldview can be explained by her background; Blanche comes from an Old South family.
She was raised to believe that the duty of a woman is to obey or at least accompany man (Fox-Genovese, 29). The main tragedy of Blanche DuBois is that she was conditioned to act and behave in such a way. Yet, without men’s adoration and support life means very little to her. This is why she desperately wants Mitch to fall in love with her. This is the only chance her to achieve a social status.
In their turn, Miranda Priestly and Andrea Sachs oppose or even reject such worldview. For them career is of much greater importance than success with the opposite sex. Nonetheless, one should not forget that this idea of female independence is not readily accepted by the society.
According to conventional perceptions of gender roles, the main task of a woman is to stay at home and look after the family, and this opinion is reflected in numerous sociological surveys (Scott, 214). Thus, one can argue that some of the opinions and stereotypes described by Tennessee Williams have survived in the twenty-first century.
Overall, in his play Tennessee Williams attempted to show how social norms and values can change. Blanche DuBois is a person who cannot get used to these changes. She was raised in an entirely different culture. This is the reason why she cannot change her gender identity. In contrast, such characters as Andrea Sachs and Miranda Priestly live in a culture in which women try to become self-sufficient and achieve the positions of power. However, such attempts are not always respected or understood by other people
Works Cited
Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth. Within the plantation household: Black and White women of the Old South. Chapel Hill: UNC Press Books, 1988. Print.
Scott, Jacqueline. Women and employment: changing lives and new challenges. NY: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008. Print.
The Devil Wears Prada. Dir. David Frankel. Perf. Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway. 20th Century Fox. 2006. Film.
Williams, Tennessee. A streetcar named desire. NY: Heinemann, 1995. Print.
Blanche DuBois in “A Streetcar Named Desire” is a fine example of the people trying to seek perfection in their lives, but finally ending up in unbearable trials and death. These people live in their own fantasy, failing to come to terms with reality. Unable to know the difference between appearance and reality, they drift slowly into difficult situations in life, finally ending up in tragedy. However, they are also the representatives of several such victims of the modern capitalistic society, victims of the so-called American dreams. They are the modern tragic heroes. Their villain is always money. Their tragic flaw is their inability to see the modern reality, to study the hard realities of modern society. As DuBois is a female character, her tragedy is also to be seen as a result of her helplessness to transform her desires in a male-dominated world. She is a victim of male cruelty too. In this respect, she is like some of the female characters in Shakespeare. A critical examination of the character of Blanche DuBois as a Shakespearean character is the focus of this paper.
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Before analyzing DuBois as a fallen female character, a look at some of the women in Shakespeare will make the task easy. A modern evaluation of Shakespearean women by feminist critics has revealed some startling facts about these characters. It is found that they were not mere angels in their house as their men wanted them to be, simply carrying out their domestic duties assigned to them. There are cases where women suffered because they could not fit themselves into the pattern set by the Patriarchal system. A fine example is that of Ophelia. She did not suffer because of her fault. Gertrude violated the patriarchal norms and married again for which her son Hamlet takes her to the task. Inconstancy is the serious charge against her. In his moral judgment of his mother, Hamlet takes an extreme view. He declares the entire woman race as dishonest: “Frailty thy name is woman!” With his rigid male yardsticks, he measures the constancy of Ophelia and tortures her. The nunnery scene is seen as a famous example of that.
A parallel situation develops in Street Car Named Desire. Blanche DuBois is found to be immoral. Her past is questioned by Stanley and later on by Mitch. The whole play is anchored on her past, an immoral past. She is on trial for her past life. Like Gertrude, she is interrogated by men. It is true that her past is not to the liking of men, but that does not give freedom and power Stanley to punish her. He takes the place of Hamlet in the play. Unlike the noble Hamlet, he rapes DuBois. He is solely responsible for making her insane, as Hamlet makes the innocent Ophelia mad with his verbal torture. The real fault of DuBois is her desire. That should be taken as her personal matter. The men are free to accept or reject her, but to bully her is a crime.
One cannot forget the difference between the days of Shakespeare and that of Tennessee Williams. The parameters with which a woman was judged during the Elizabethan days did not exist during the time of Williams. Yet, several parallel characteristics can be found in the female characters of these two writers. Williams wanted to show the social realism which his central character, DuBois, failed to realize in her life. She is a social snob living in her own fantasy world. Her deliberate attempts to create artificial appearances of beauty in order to attract sexual admiration from men are at the core of her downfall. She fails to distinguish between the actual and the ideal, between reality and fantasy. Her preference for magic is a common illness that can be traced in the postwar generation of America. However, overvaluing desire is always bad for anyone. Lady Macbeth’s case is a fine example. She couldn’t feel happy with whatever Macbeth achieved with his greatness. Finally, too much of her desire caused her downfall along with that of Macbeth. Stella, DuBois’ sister lives a contented life.
The play, A Streetcar Named Desire, reveals the pretentious life of Blanche DuBois. She comes from an aristocratic family and was very beautiful. She had a young husband who committed suicide. In Scene 6, this is how she remembers him: “He was a boy, just a boy, when I was a very young girl. When I was sixteen I made the discovery- love…. But I was lucky. Deluded. There was something different about the boy, nervousness, a softness and tenderness which wasn’t like a man’s…” (Williams). Now, having lost everything, she comes to stay with her sister, Stella. Always shy of facing light to avoid her real age and beauty, Blanche is always on the lookout for a new suitor. She meets there a young man; named Mitch who, she thinks, will take her after listening to her past. But he rejects her as he comes to know of her promiscuous past. The real contrast in the play is between Blanche and Stanley Kowalski, Stella’s husband. He is a man who has his feet firm on the earth. He observes her instinct for fabrication, her tendency to hide from the harsh truth. As Blanche comes into contact with Stella, Stanley, and Mitch during her stay in Stella’s apartment, her true nature gets more and more revealed. The climax comes when Stella goes to the hospital to give birth to a baby. Blanche is then raped by Stanley, thus finally stripping her of her vanity. The rape is her final trial from which she fails to return to her old self forever. In short, her unbridled sexual desire ended up in a rape which brought her own downfall.
Dominance, illusion, and authority are the negative qualities of men during the days of Shakespeare. Stanley is not in any way different from this. Mitch also changes his mind as soon as he comes to know of DuBois’ past. The readers can remember that it is the passive nature of Desdemona which led to her perpetual suffering. She is helpless against the male aggression of Othello. Obedience and absolute silence is what men want from women during those days. Stella is able to please men to some extent by accepting her fate. In other words, she checks her desires, unlike her sister. She understands the realty and she does not entertain any kind of dreams. She does not find her small apartment inconvenient in any way. On the other hand, the moment DuBois enters her sister’s house, she feels suffocated in the new environment. Stella knows what her husband needs. The playwright does not hide that what Stanly seeks is mere animal lust. Unless he is pleased Stella cannot live in peace. Blanche, on the other hand, does not weigh such facts and try to make her life happy. There is a restless woman hiding under her white dress. DuBois’ fall begins the moment this secret is discovered by the male companions. This happens to most of the women in Shakespeare too. Gertrude also tried her best to hide her real self. Her tragedy begins the moment her son discovers her true nature.
Conclusion
The comparison between Blanche DuBois and the women in Shakespeare is, thus, mainly about the unbridled desires. At the same time, this desire is always nourished by their longing for mere material life. The unprincipled stand which men take against women also precipitates the all. The stress in both the writers is for restraint and ethical norms. The basic emotions dealt with by these writers indicate their understanding of human nature. Therefore, these characters represent the whole of humanity, struggling to adapt to the situations in which they live. These female characters also reveal that unless a balanced view of life is achieved, it is very difficult to live a happy life in this world.
Reference
William, Tennesse. A Streetcar Named Desire. New York: Signet, 1972.
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is a classic of American theater. Thomas P. Adler said that “it was the finest play ever written for the American stage” (Kolin 1). Exactly this play determined the author’s themes, thoughts and ideals. This essay, however, will focus solely on the Blanche and Stanley relationship.
According to Harold Klerman, it is the only play that describes the personality, society and depicts realistically the reality of that time. The setting of the play took place in contemporary times. It is a story of a decline of a Southern lady Blanche DuBois. In this play, Williams disclose a wide range of themes.
Among them are the themes of domestic violence, relationships of men and women, the fantasy and its confrontation with reality. One of the most important themes of the play turns around the relationships of the main characters, Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski. These are two characters that are put in opposition. The climax of their opposition is the Stanley’s rape of Blanche.
On one hand, this episode depicts a cruel attitude and immoral behavior, “Stanley is wrong and Blanche is right, the moralists agree” (Fleche 500). On the other hand, Blanche’s rape was inevitable (Fleche 500). And through the characterization of Blanche and Stanley’s relationship, I will argue that Blanche was raped.
Blanche DuBois comes to New Orleans to her sister Stella married to rude and down-to-earth man Stanley Kowalski. Blanche and Stanley did not like each other from the very first second they met each other. Blanche saw Stanley beat his wife and behaved as an animal, “the primary example of physical abuse against Stella occurs in Scene Three, when drunk and angry, Stanley first tosses the radio out the window and then charges after his pregnant wife and strikes her” (Koprince 46).
Stanley is showed as a brutish person without moral qualities. However, Blanche is also not “an angel”. Her previous life is not perfect and all the manners and tenderness is just a mask to hide her “dark” past and alcoholism.
The only person who suspects her and wants to show her real face to everybody, “and yet it seems “natural” to read A Streetcar Named Desire as an allegorical journey toward Blanche’s apocalyptic destruction at the hands of her “executioner,” Stanley” (Fleche 504).
As it has already been mentioned, these two characters are put in opposition, however we cannot say that this is an opposition of good and evil. Thus, Blanche appears as a young, beautiful, and unhappy woman who survived the suicide of her husband and wants to start all over again.
For the first time, we see her elegant and tender. The first impression is absolutely positive. She is so light and smart, she knows French and music. However, we do not know much about her past and it is also suspiciously. We guess that she lies and Stanley helps us understand it.
The author is sympathetic to his heroine. He does not idealize her, on the contrary, he is quite objective: he shows her live to whiskey and relations with men after her husband’s death. “Blanche who has never spoken an honest word in her life is allowed, indeed encouraged, to present her life to the audience as a vocational decision…” (Toles 119). The “impurity” of Blanche’s past suggests the final of the play and it is a quite logical completion of the story.
The truth cannot be hide and everybody should pay for his/her actions. Blanche planned to marry Mitchell, but sooner or later, he would find out about her “sins”, “she cannot escape the status of victim, on many fronts, nor avert the plans which have led to her committal” (Toles 117). She could not expect other attitude to herself, especially in that social layer with it principles and relations between men and women.
Thus, the character of Blanche can be interpreted as positive and negative at the same time, on the one hand “she has been enshrined as a hallowed representative of the Old South, a secular saint. On the other, negatively, she has been branded a nymphomaniac, a liar, an infectious source of destructive feminine desire” (Kolin 3).
With this “image” of a liar and nymphomaniac Stanley fought. Stanley appears as a person with animal nature. He drinks bear all the time, “copulates, play games, smashes light bulbs, paws through Blanche’s wardrobe, throws plates on the floor, even commits rape” (Cardullo 29).
Stanley is a representative of a dark reality. He embodies the “prototypical batterer”. According to Susan Koprince, he has all signs of such person. “He is hypermasculine, believes in mail’s superiority and has dual personality” (50). Those traits make him hate Blanche.
First of all, he hates her aristocratic past and he is outraged by her attempts to fool him showing that she is better than he and his friends. This is contradictory to his image of a woman. It makes him look for “dark spots” in her past and he finds them. Stanley does everything to ruin life of this woman.
It seems to be cruel and basely. However, he is the only person who supported the truth and “justice” and reality. Stanley is a dark version of the salesman, selling the idealistic Blanche a harsh reality on the specious grounds that it is somehow good for her and willing to use force, if necessary, to make the sale.” (Cardullo 30).
The result of the confrontation of Stanley and Blanch was the rape. However, it cannot be considered as a cruel violation. Neither the context, nor the scene manifests it. In her article, Anna Fleche says, “she is the erring woman who gets what she “asks” for (her realistic antecedents are clear)” (507).
This is the way other men treated her, this is what she expected, this is how a logical flow of things should be like. All the situation and Blanche herself “suggests” rape to Stanley. If other men did it, why he cannot? Moreover, she does not resist but sinks on her knees and remains “inert”, “She is not only silent but crumpled,
immobile, while he takes over control and agency” (Fleche 508 ). Thus, the scene of the rape denies any emotions, it is a conflict that arises between two characters. In addition. With this action Stanley returned Blanche to reality. As George Toles mentions, “Stanley’s casually violent gesture recalls the rape and, less malevolently, repeats the realist’s inalterable lesson: those who live entirely in dreams will perish” (130).
Thus, Blanche and Stanley are two characters put in opposition. Neither of them is perfect. Blanche lives with her dream and she constantly lies to hide a cruel reality and her real past. Stanley is a representative of this cruel reality which opens Blanche’s eyes through the violent action.
However, both, with context, main characters’ traits of character and actions, especially in the scene of a rape, the author coverts the meaning of the rape. Now, it is not just the act of violence, but the conflict that shows who is who in the play.
Works Cited
Cardullo, Robert James. “Selling in American Drama.” Helen Dwight Reid Educational Foundation. (2007): 29-33.
Fleche, Anne. “The Space of Madness and Desire: Tennessee Williams and Streetcar.” Modern Drama. Vol. 38. Issue 4. (1995): 498-509.
Kolin, Phillip. Williams. A streetcar named Desire. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Print.
Koprince, Susan. “Domestic violence in A Streetcar Named Desire.” Southern Studies. Vol 7. Issue 2. (1996): 43-55.
Toles, George. “Blanche Dubois and the kindness of endings”. Raritan. Vol 14. Issue 4. (1995): 115-144.
Thomas Mann and Tennessee Williams are very reputed writers of the twentieth century. Mann is a Nobel Prize winner and Williams was awarded Pulitzer Prize for his contribution to literature, particularly to American drama. Mann’s novels are highly philosophical, apart from being political and religious. Williams too embraces almost every area of human life, with particular attention to American life. The most common element in both these writers is their use of symbols to depict the human conditions. A comparative study of Gustov in Death in Venice and Blanche DuBois in A Street Car Named Desire is the focus of this paper. The comparison is mainly on the use of the symbols used by these writers to enrich the qualities of their characters and theme.
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Gustav von Aschenbach is in his early fifties. He lost his wife at an early age in his life. He is a devoted artist. The story gives an account of his travel to Venice which brought the downfall of his life. In the hotel in which he stayed in Venice, he comes across a beautiful Polish boy named Tradzio and takes up a liking for him. The boy looks extremely beautiful in his sailor suit. The infatuation for the boy grows into an obsession from which the artist fails to come back. He meets the boy at several places in Venice, but it is only from a distance. An announcement from the health department as a warning to desist from eating shellfish increases Gustov’s anxiety about the boy. He is worried about the boy falling ill. The news of the break up of cholera in Venice provokes Gustov to warn the boy’s family about their eating habits, but he fails to communicate. Gustov thus spends his days in Venice, living in his dreams in which he experiences orgiastic pleasure with the boy. The excessive love towards the boy makes the artist conscious of his appearance. He begins to dress well and even gets his hair dyed by a barber. Morality and dignity slowly desert him as his obsession for the boy multiplies.
Thomas Mann has used in this story very strong allusions to Greek philosophy. The love which Gustov has towards the boy is based on Platonic ideas. Plato’s craze for perfection can be found in the perfect beauty of the boy which pulls the artist towards him. Plato in his Phaedrus depicts a scene in which Socrates sits with a boy named Phaedrus and talks about ideal love. It was common in Greek society to think of the ideal love between man and man. In fact, the ancient people in Greece did not make much distinction between different forms of love as is common today. Gustov’s obsession with the boy is thus based on Mann’s allusions to Greek ideas. He also shows that such blind love can lead one to decadence and degeneration. Gustov’s death in Venice is thus the result of his unbridled desire for the object he loved, for his pursuit for perfection in beauty.
As the events are narrated in the story, the focus is more on Gustov and less on the boy. It is the impact that the boy creates in his lover which catches the attention of the readers. Therefore, Gustov’s costuming and his artificiality gain importance. His unusual urge to look young surprises the readers. It could be that the readers find their own image in Gustov as he tries to disguise it. Gustov meets three strangers in the story, and all of them with their strange appearances act as the shadows of something definite to happen. He hails to realize that what shadows him is his own death. Gustov’s moods are represented through the image of weather. Altogether Mann succeeds to convey his messages through the character of the boy, the artist, and the other objects in the story.
Tennessee Williams too created a beautiful character named Blanche DuBois in his play, A Street Car Named Desire. Blanche too has a past, like Gustov. Her young husband committed suicide at an early age in his life. She claims to have lived an aristocratic life in her huge ancestral house named Belle Rev. When the play begins DuBois is discovered in the small apartment of her sister in New Orleans. She has come to stay with her sister. The events progress and the spectators gradually understand that her likes and dislikes are quite opposite to that of her sister, Stella. DuBois drinks heavily, which indicates that she has some serious memory from which she tries to escape. She also fails to keep a rapport with her sister’s husband, Stanley Kowalski. The story slowly reveals the conflicting views of the characters. Like Gustov’s visit to Venice, Dubois’s visit to Orleans marks her downfall.
It is through some ideal metaphors that Williams successfully reveals the character of Blanche. The basic nature of her is her inability to accept the truth. She fails to see the social reality and continues to live in her own world of fantasy. She too, like Gustov, makes false appearances by giving excessive care to her dress and her hair. She is also eager to hide her age and tries to attract young men. Like Gustave, she is also obsessed with ideal love. Her yearning for a young man finally brings Mitch closer to her. However, the play ends when her lustful desire is raped by Stanley, leaving her to live an insane life.
There are several symbols in the play through which the characters and situations get the intensive meaning. The title itself reveals the strange desire with which DeBoi lives. The stage setting also requires the view of a street behind it for conveying the contrast between DuBois’ fantasy and the social facts going on outside. She says that she came by taking a “streetcar named Desire”, and another one called “Cemeteries”. The irony is that instead of reaching the Elysian Fields she desired she reaches the French quarters of her sister. Some scholars have tried to discover phallic and sexual symbols in things related to this character. The white dress in which Blanche appears shows her outer appearance which is hiding her real self. It also exhibits her false purity and innocence. The frequency in her bathing is taken as an activity to wash her filthy past. It springs from her unconscious mind. In the same way, her excessive indulgence in alcohol is an attempt to escape from some guilt that is constantly haunting her. The disturbing memory which she wants to escape from becomes clear at the end of the play. The memory of the suicide of her young husband is an event that she can never escape from. The most symbolic action she frequently resorts to in the play is her attempts to hide the bright light. There is a strong link between her love for Allan and the light. She covers it in order to avoid its brightness. The light to her is synonymous with truth. She cannot bear its sharp attack.
Even the names of the characters are symbolic. Stella is the name of a star. She is the only bright character in the play. She stands as a bridge between her sister and her husband. Without her presence, the feud between Blanche and Stanley would have gone uncontrollable. She also stands as a contrast to her sister. She represents reality as Blanche represents illusion. Stanley stands for stone field or cemetery. The apartment is also symbolic of the social reality, its limitations. It stands as a contrast to DuBois’ vast space in her dreams. She finds the rooms congested, indicating the vastness of her mindscape. In fact, this difference is the root cause of her problems.
There are, thus, many parallels between Gustov and Blanche DuBois. Both move out of their original place in search of a way to quench their desires. They suffer due to a sense of incompleteness in their life, in their love relationship. Both have a keen tendency to disguise and live in a world of illusion. Too much attention is given to their external appearances. They continue to see reality and are pushed by some impulses which are out of place and out of time. The homosexual relationship appears in both these works. Allan, Blanche’s young husband was a homosexual. To become exotic is a strong tendency in both. They invite their own doom by not realizing that they are strange persons in the places they arrive. Lack of moral control and discipline precipitates their tragedy. They are not only unaware of their alien selves in their new situations, but they also lack a sense of adaptability. Gustov is happy to know that his luggage is misplaced because that gives him a chance to be back in the hotel where the beautiful boy is. Warnings come to both in several ways, but they refuse to take notice of them. There is an inherent tragic instinct in them to push their life to a miserable end. DuBois is solely responsible for her insanity. Stanley only serves as an instrument to bring it into reality.
Conclusion
Though the comparison made here is between a male and a female character, the situations have a gender-free reality. Thomas Mann has an excellent ability to render conflicting emotions in a wonderful art form. The influence of Greek masters is evident in all his writing. Tennessee Williams is an American first and last. His boldness to picture facts without censoring has shocked many theatergoers. Both on the stage and on the screen Blanche DuBois has been a marvelous success.
Tennessee Williams’ play titled ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ has been termed as a landmark play by many literary scholars. It is one of his masterpieces, which won him many awards, including the coveted Pulitzer Prize in 1948. It is a perfect presentation of the two major characters Blanche DuBois whose pretensions to virtue and culture only thinly cover her alcoholism and illusions of greatness, and Stanley Kowalski, who is primitive, rough, and physically as well as emotionally abusive to his wife and Blanche (Skiba 5; Skiba 6). The play deals perfectly with a case of culture clash between these two major characters. The purpose of this essay is to answer the following important questions.
In what sense is or is not Blanche a liar?
Blanche is a liar in two major senses. First and foremost, she is a liar to herself. She is a liar to herself because instead of accepting the reality of her unsuccessful love and marriage life, she withdrew into a world in which fantasies and disillusions blend impeccably with reality (Skiba 6). After a short marriage spoilt by her finding out that her husband, Allan Grey, was having a homosexual affair, she is not able to accept and face that reality so that she can overcome the pain and frustrations that came with those revelations about her husband’s double life and the unfortunate death that followed (Skiba 5).
Instead, she puts on a composure, which is essentially an illusion she uses to shield herself and others in her life from her reality. She lies to herself that everything is alright and sets out to continue with her life without accepting that her life would never be the same again. This approach to tragedies and fate in her life sees her withdrawing into living a lie about her past (Skiba 5).
Secondly, Blanche is a liar to others. At the very beginning, when she arrived at her sister’s place in New Orleans, she lied to her that her supervisor had allowed her some days off her work as an English teacher because of an alleged nervous breakdown, when in fact, she had been dismissed summarily because of having an intimate affair with a seventeen years old student (Skiba 4).
In scene two, Stanley is suspicious that Blanche had lied to them about the loss of their family’s plantation in Southern Belle, where she had opted to live while taking care of the dying members of their family. Stanley and Blanche’s difficult relationship worsens when he finds out some old love-letters, which brings to light Blanche’s young marriage to a boy who ultimately died (Skiba 4). More about her hitherto unknown indecent past is learned through Stanley’s co-worker, who regularly traveled to Laurel, Blanche’s old hometown (Skiba 5).
In short, even though Blanche entrusted some information about her fallen marriage to Mitch and later accepted what was said about her indecent past when Mitch confronted her, she did it at the wrong time and in a desperate attempt to win Mitch’s heart for marriage and physical affection which she was evidently starved off (Skiba 5).
How might an actress indicate whether or not Blanche really knows the truth?
An actress can point to whether Blanche knows the truth by vividly bringing out the situations and circumstances when she entrusts true information about her unsuccessful marriage to Mitch, to who she was sincerely attracted. Acting perfectly, Blanche’s motives and emotions behind her revelations regarding a part of her past to Mitch can point to how she understood the truth and its value. Also, an actress can indicate whether Blanche knew the truth by acting perfectly an illusionist that Blanche was by portraying well her vain personality, which is evident throughout the play, as well as bringing out her perfect reaction to Mitch when he confronted her with reliable information about her indecent past (Skiba 6; Skiba 5).
Works Cited
Skiba, Melanie. The Character of Blanche DuBois in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’. München, Deutschland: GRIN Verlag, 2009. pp. 4- 10. Print.
Tenessee Williams’ renowned Broadway play A Streetcar Named Desire manages to reflect the turbulence of family drama in New Orleans’ French Quarter in the 1940s. The author explores the vulnerabilities of the story’s protagonists – Blanche DuBois, Stella Kowalski, and Stanley Kowalski. Williams may have projected his own insecurities and personal tragedies into the play, drawing inspiration from his family (Vernadakis). It is evident that the writer has been an exceptionally vulnerable human being due to his experiences of being homosexual while struggling with depression and addiction (Vernadakis). Williams translates his struggles with being an outcast onto his characters. Blanche’s inability to face reality, as well as Stanley and Stella’s complex relationship, reflect their vulnerabilities as human beings and help drive the narrative forward. Williams mentioned that sensitive human nature in a world that expects full conformity is a major theme in his writing. The author manages to demonstrate the power of vulnerability and raw emotions through the play’s characters, which keeps the story full of tension and interesting dynamics.
The character of Blanche DuBois represents the destructive path of a proper Southern Belle refusing to face reality. As a result, she struggles to safeguard her image while struggling with addiction to alcohol. Her tendency to over-stimulate her senses comes from the erratic fear of her past. Blanche is haunted by “the rapid, feverish polka tune, the ‘Versouviana’,” which brings back repressed memories (Williams 139). She then turns to alcohol, that provides her with a temporary escape. Mitch mentions that Blanche has been “lapping it up all summer like a wild cat” (Williams 143). The word ‘wild’ reflects her animalistic nature in her strive for immediate pleasure and emotional release. Williams reflects Blanche’s vulnerability through her refusal to conform to conventional societal norms, painting her as a social outcast.
The theme of vulnerability continues in the portrayal of Stanley and Stella, a seemingly happy young couple. Stella’s blind optimism is evident due to her inability to accept the abusive nature of her marriage. She describes Stanley based on the fact that he “always smashed things” (Williams 72). Stella struggles to realize the power struggle between her and her husband because she has always depended on him for money. Therefore, she has never questioned his treatment of her. While Stella’s vulnerable nature is evident in her inability to face reality, Stanley’s anxiety is less obvious. He is portrayed as unlikeable and harsh. However, he is vulnerable because he fears to lose Stella. This explains his attitude towards Blanche since he believes that she will take his wife away from him. This erratic fear leads to him trying to destroy Blanche and assert his dominance with Stella. Williams’ demonstration of the couple’s raw emotions and deep insecurities makes both Stella and Stanley seem real and compelling. In terms of the story’s progression, this serves as a tool to fill the narrative with conflict, making it more entertaining for the readers.
In conclusion, it is apparent that Williams succeeds in incorporating the theme of vulnerability into the play. He manages to make the protagonists seem much more realistic and relatable by contrasting the characters’ public image with their inner emotional anxieties. Stella’s vulnerability is evident in her fight for respect in a patriarchal society. Blanche’s fear of reality leads to addiction. Stanley’s relationship with Stella affects the way he treats Blanche. Williams’ demonstrates the complexity of human emotions through the portrayal of insecurities and vulnerabilities, which allows readers to examine their own anxieties and fears. The dramatic presentation of vulnerability serves a specific literary purpose since it ignites readers’ curiosity and fills the story with much-needed conflict and tension.
Works Cited
Vernadakis, Emmanuel. “Violent Fragility: The Mythical, the Iconic and Tennessee Williams’ Politics of Gender in ‘One Arm’” Journal of the Short Story in English, vol. 67, 2016, pp. 141-154, Web.
Williams, Tenessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. New Directions, 2004.
“All good and innocence is easily shadowed by evil” is a phrase that best defines the entire work of Williams Tennessee in “A Streetcar Named Desire”. The analysis of this work is a drama about the relationship between a married couple Stella and Stanley Kowalski. The couple is paid a visit by Stella’s older sister, Blanche who then is put in the central picture of the drama as the plot of the entire work unfolds. The drama reveals the story of the mental torture of a once delicate, repressed, fragile lady brought up in a wealthy family of Mississippi planters. The fragility, emotional demise and fragility gives Blanche the most complex character in the entire work.
All good and innocence is easily shadowed by evil is profoundly captured in this work in that Williams has explicitly exposed the degeneration of human feelings and social relationships. Good characters are eroded and personality traits are lost in the murky troubles of meaningless relationships that are the products of stress and depression.
Introduced by Williams as a complete symbol of innocence and chastity, Blanche is not only aristocratic, sensitive, beautiful and loving but she is also intelligent and fragile with a beauty described as moth like appearance. The positive traits and characters that in this context are aspects of good and innocence become diluted and completely overshadowed by the evils upon her arrival at Elysian Fields. Among the evils that overshadow the positive traits of the beautiful and loving Blanche are racism, homophobia, loneliness, pain, human brutality and sexual behavior of human beings. Elysian Fields is characterized by poverty, two street cars, desire and cemeteries, factors that symbolize it as an evil surrounding.
The fact that something wrong and evil will form part of Blanche’s life is depicted in the beginning of the work by the mysterious expressions that compound the descriptions of Elysian Fields. These mysterious expressions, which form the fundamental symbols of the drama point to one fact that things are not good for Blanche and that something out of order will definitely form part of her future life. The link between Blanche’s good past and dark future is well represented. The discovery that her husband Allan Grey is a homosexual is a heart wrenching life experience that Blanche finds very hard shoulder.
In her description,
“I didn’t know anything except I loved him unendurably but without being able to help him or help myself. Then I found out. In the worst of all possible ways. By coming, suddenly into a room that I thought was empty, which wasn’t empty, but had two people in it, the boy I had married and an older man who had been his friend for years…” (42).
This discovery leads Allan to commit suicide. Blanche blames herself for it and carries the burdens of the life. The pain and sorrow that compound her life after the death of her husband transforms the good depicted by her innocence and chaste to evil character depicted by prostitution and lack of self control for the rest of her life. She not only loses her husband but also watches as her other relatives die off; leaving lonely and resolute. A once beautiful, lovely, intelligent and sensitive young girl brought up in a wealthy family is transformed by the evils of the world into a completely different character whose life has lost total meaning.
Works Cited
Williams, Tennessee. A streetcar named desire. New York: Heinemann, 1995.
The sleeveless multi-layered dance/party dress, even in summer cotton, is impractical for travel, but probably wowed the soldiers. The easter-egg colors, sweetheart neckline, long fluttery peekaboo overlay hemline, and dropped basque waist all distract from aging neck and legs and highlight her childless waistline. The contrast-lined bolero jacket and coordinating gloves signal “ladylike”, as do pearls. The entirely unwalkable shoes suggest helplessness.
The dressmaker-crafted multi-yard outfit bespeaks a privileged past, but its inappropriateness suggests that such outfits are all that remain. This is reinforced by the fact that she sometimes draws on stocking lines to save on real, rationed nylons.
This is the shape of dress: a sleeveless sweetheart neckline, ruched bodice, with dropped basque waist and long multi-gored, multi-layered skirt falling from the hips, with translucent overlay. The color is a girlish pink, the fabric is cotton with cotton organdie overlay. The whole thing rustles just a bit when in motion. It contains tens of yards of fabric, which would have been very difficult and expensive to obtain in the Depression or during wartime, or even post-war, rationing.
This is roughly the shape of the cotton bolero jacket cover-up, but with much shorter sleeves for the summer heat. The shell is pink, the lining is spring green and shows at the turn of the color and the wrist cuff.
Three-quarter length gloves in coordinating spring green conceal aging hands and look demure. The color suggests that the outfit was purchased together back before the plantation was lost through ineffective management.
Cripplingly useless for walking, such peep-toe ankle-strapped platform shoes can be worn with or without stockings for dancing. They should be cream or bone, combine leather and fabric, with bows, and be covered with fake New Orleans mud when she arrives. They were probably quite fetching when worn with the military men with whom Blanche spent so much time.
The backs of her legs will have lines drawn on them to look like these stockings. Stockings were one of many things rationed during and immediately after the war. While she can pull dresses out of her trunk for months, stockings are consumable and thus she is forced to make do after the money and the house is gone.
A summary, lighter-colored version of this type of purse would be just about right for Blanche – no shoulder strap and made with a Bakelite handle to reflect the times. It is, like her shoes, completely inappropriate for the long trip in the hot summer with cumbersome luggage.
In contrast, this practical, sleek outfit would be appropriate for Stella for going out in the daytime. The purse, shoes, and gloves are too high contrast, however, and would be better in cream. The shoes are strapped to keep them securely on the foot, the hemline is a thrifty length, and the color and fabric are appropriate for daytime and errands.