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"A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE."   Term Paper ID:28373 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Analysis of Tennessee Williams' play from perspective on how characters reflect different attitudes toward dreams & reality.... More...

4 Pages / 900 Words 6 sources, 11 Citations, MLA Format $16.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Analysis of Tennessee Williams' play from perspective on how characters reflect different attitudes toward dreams & reality. Paper Introduction: In A Streetcar Named Desire, the playwright has crafted a well-designed play in which the characters reflect different altitudes toward dreams and reality, and these characters are differentiated by the degree of illusion they require to function in this world. This clash represents the theme, which is that people often need illusion in order to survive. Stanley Kowalski is the character seen as most realistic, and his directness conflicts with the need for illusion of someone like Blanche DuBois. His friend Mitch is something of a romantic, while Stanley's wife also takes a realistic position to counter her own romantic nature, though in the end, she also accepts an illusion in order not to destroy her marriage. In this world, those who require the most illusion are also the most easily destroyed when reality intrudes, and Blanche is destroyed by Stanley's version Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. A Streetcar Named Desire. Cambridge University Press, 1991.Weales, Gerald. You want the lantern? (Williams 127).Stanley here refers to different illusions Blanche has used to hidereality, from a paper cover to make lights less harsh to the perfume andpowder she uses on herself. Fromthe beginning of the play he is made to seem animal-like. You come in here and sprinkle the place with powder and spray perfume and cover the light-bulb with a paper lantern and lo and behold the place has turned into Egypt and you the Queen of the Nile! Not once did you pull any wool over this boy's eyes! In some ways, Stanley's insistence ontruth and reality is also pathological. Blanche, on the other hand, never faces reality because it makesher unhappy, and yet the illusion does no more than hide her unhappinessfor a short time. He offersher a drink which she refuses--she says that she rarely touches it, thoughin truth she drinks all the time. This clash representsthe theme, which is that people often need illusion in order to survive.Stanley Kowalski is the character seen as most realistic, and hisdirectness conflicts with the need for illusion of someone like BlancheDuBois. For Stanley, illusions are merely lies--not waysof protecting oneself from the harshness of the world, but simply lies. Indeed, she is a woman of contrasts: From her first appearance, when preoccupied with her own fatigue and pain she insults the amiable Eunice, Blanche is, as Williams once called her, "a delicate tigress with her back to the wall" (Weales 26-27).She descends into madness in the course of the play, and in the structureof the play, Stanley is in danger of becoming Blanche's victim. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1965.Williams, Tennessee. Stanley may not see that whathe did was rape, for he views it only as something he had to do to shatterBlanche's illusions. Blanche cannot live in the same way after the rape: "Realityhas forced itself on her, and she has no way left to travel except madnessand death" (Kernan 11). Stanley's crudeness is quiteapparent, but at the same time he shows himself to be uneasy in the face ofher claims to a higher social position. Stella mediates between her sisterand her husband, standing in both camps as the born romantic married to therealistic. Blanche DuBois has withdrawn into the illusion of the genteelSouthern lady, something she was raised to be but is not. Stanley sees through the illusion thatBlanche lives by, and he tries immediately to break through it. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1993.Kernan, Alvin B. Stanley is a character who is open and direct. These two are totally different intheir outlook on the world, and Stanley resents the implications, one ofwhich is that he comes from a totally different environment from his wife,Stella. In A Streetcar Named Desire, the playwright has crafted a well-designed play in which the characters reflect different altitudes towarddreams and reality, and these characters are differentiated by the degreeof illusion they require to function in this world. Tennessee Williams. Blanche is not merely thesensitive victim, however, and Weales says the play is too balanced for herto take that role alone. Indeed, thatideal is something that probably does not really exist at all but that hasserved for generations as an image. The meeting of Stanley and Blanche shows both to be uneasy, as wouldhappen when reality and illusion meet. Williams shows both Blanche and the audience that the antidote to thekind of insensitive reality of the Stanleys of this world is art. Stanleyalways denies the illusion and asserts the reality. (Williams 14 ). The loss of her and Stella's childhoodhome is a key reference point, the beginning of the need for illusion.Blanche's character is revealed by contrast with that of Stanley. His friend Mitch is something of a romantic, while Stanley's wifealso takes a realistic position to counter her own romantic nature, thoughin the end, she also accepts an illusion in order not to destroy hermarriage. Other characters in the play also reflect different attitudes towardillusion. Gerald Weales cites Stanley as "the insensitive brute who drivesBlanche to her destruction" (Weales 26). Stella tries to tell her sisterhow she feels and says after one poker night: "I said I'm not in anythingthat I have a desire to get out of" (Williams 65). Tennessee Williams. In this world, those who require the most illusion are also themost easily destroyed when reality intrudes, and Blanche is destroyed byStanley's version of reality. Stanley clearly realizes this: "Somepeople rarely touch it, but it touches them often" (Williams 3 ). Stella,baby!" (Williams 13), and he tosses her a package of raw meat, a symbol ofhis brute nature. The first lineof the play has Stanley yelling up at his wife, "Hey, there! Lant says Blanche tells the truth about Stanley "when sheshows her disgust for him" (Lant 23 ). New York: Chelsea House, 1987.Lant, Kathleen Margaret. A Streetcar Named Desire. Again and again, Blanche arguesagainst Stella's view of the world, and Blanche seems not to understandthat Stella is happy in her married life. He actsfirst, however, and succeeds where she fails. Stella may seem a woman who cantell truth from dream, but in fact she chooses to live in a dream world ofher own so she will not have to recognize what Stanley has done. Stanley places great faith in the truth, which adds to theironic ending as he and Stella remain together, in essence living a lie,the lie that Stanley did not rape Blanche. When the artistic act remains interior and thus private--merely an illusion or delusion in the mind--it requires only the self to do the imagining, which is possibly a close analogy to a retreat into madness (Adler 85). Stanley, on the other hand, has no illusions and can see through Blanchefrom the first. Boston: Twayne, 199 .Hayman, Ronald. Stella, on the other hand, creates her ownillusion in order to hide from this particular truth, telling herself allthe while that she is only being realistic. A keyconflict is seen in the threat Blanche poses to the domestic life ofStanley and Stella. Blanche lives byillusion, though, and so can never admit to herself what her own life hasbeen like any more than she can recognize the reality of her sister's life. . Blanche DuBois envisions herself as a martyr and often complainsabout the way life has treated her. Some critics see Stella ashaving made a pact with the devil: The rape occurs while Stella is in the hospital giving birth to Stanley's child, but she has secured her tenure of the future by coming down to his level (Hayman 116). He does so because he believes his friend will beharmed by her illusions. Yet, Blanche also tells the truth in her own way, at least aboutother people. Stella never throws this up to him, but Blanche is an immediatechallenge to his sense of self. In the end, Blanche is destroyed as she tries to hold onto herillusions, illusions which she treats as a refuge from an unfeeling worldbut which has become pathological. The playitself is presented as a dream, the dream of the playwright, and so it is adream with an illusion that assuages the pains of reality in a differentway than the singular illusions of a Blanche: The audience at Streetcar enters the theater only to see one of the characters, Blanche, transform the stage into a theater of her own which she attempts to control by decorating the stage, directing the script, and playing the major role . "A Streetcar Named Misogyny." In Violence in Drama, James Redmond (ed.), 225-238. Stanley wants the world to stand naked as itreally is, as he indicates when Blanche is leaving: You left nothing here but spilt talcum and old empty perfume bottles--unless it's the paper lantern you want to take with you. Stanley is rough and crude, but he is also honest andopen and says what he means while challenging anyone to dispute him.Stanley faces the world as it is and expects the world to take him at facevalue. Hetells Blanche that he has known from the start that she as she presentedherself: I've been on to you from the start! "Truth and Dramatic Mode in A Streetcar Named Desire." In Tennessee Williams, Harold Bloom (ed.), 9-12. Stanley resents the interest Mitch shows in Blanche, and whenthe opportunity presents itself, Stanley exposes Blanche to Mitch and ruinsher chances with him. Works CitedAdler, Thomas P. . New York: Signet, 1947. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.