Street car named desire
A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, is a very worldly play that
contains issues from life; a guilty feeling of abandonment, the anger and frustration
between two complete opposites, and the violation of a rape. It happens in New
Orleans where there are many different races. Blanche DuBois, loses her
ancestral home, Belle Reve, and her teaching position as a result of
promiscuity. With expectations for the new life, she moves in with her pregnant
sister Stella and her brutish husband, Stanley Kowalski. Throughout the play,
we can distinguish many difference between Blanche and Stella. Although they
come from the same noble and aristocratic family,their philosophies of life are
distinct and lead them to different roads. Blanche is a highly vulnerable, as
well as neurotic, woman living in a world of boozy self deception. She is
intelligent, yet prefers magic over realism. She puts too much emphasis on her
manners and appearance. She demands to be seen for what she wished to be,
rather than what she really is.This is the reason for the paper lanterns and
constant bathing - she is creating her world of illusion. A complite opposite
of Blanch is Stella.Unlike her sister, she is a passive and gentle woman. She
is five years younger than Blanche, about 25, and has been submissive to her
for her entire life. After marrying Stanley, she is forced to join the lower
class, endure her husband\'s bad temper, and be obedient to him. Blanche is not
a compromising person who can adapt to changes. Moreover, I think she is afraid
of alterations and denies facing the reality (ex. she is afraid of losing her
properties, her youth and beauty, etc.). She feels very uncertain about the new
world and tries to persist in her own way of behavior and thinking, since that
is how she has been educated: to be a lady. Stella is the connecting figure to
two different worlds- the supposed royalty world of Blanche DuBois and the more
common world of Stanley Kowalski. Blanche and Stanley both attempt to influence
her, and they succeed to a degree. Stella still has many of the qualities
instilled in her at Belle Reve, yet she does not let that get in the way of her
having some fun. As she is so entangled between two completely opposite worlds,
she is stuck and eventually forced to side with one of the two. Both sisters
stand in the opposite positions to Stanley. Blanche is more sensible about his
violence than Stella is.We can distinguish this difference in the late of Scene
3. When Stanley beats Stella, she returnes to him soon. In the next morning,
Blanche has a quarrel with Stella. She thinks Stanley\'s behavior can\'t be put
up with, and she suggests Stella to find another man who could suit her.
However,Blanche does not take into consideration that Stella loves Stanley and
doesn\'t mind his violence at all. From the beginning Stanley has a deep
prejudice against Blanche and everything associated with her. He has the
reasons to think that she is not a completely honest person.He gets suspicious
of how Blanche obtained all of her clothes, furs, and jewelry.Things get worse
when she refuses to reveal why she left her small Louisiana home. Stanley
believes she\'s conned his wife out of the family mansion, therefore, he starts
looking into her past. He discovers that Blanche has been swindle them since
the day she came. After she lost Belle Reve, she moved to the Hotel Flamingo
and became Dame Blanche. She became extremely promiscuous and the hotel
eventually threw her out. A nearby army camp referred to her place as
\"Out of Bounds.\" She was regarded as being crazy. Blanche did not
resign from teaching. She lost her job after it was discovered that she was
having relations with a seventeen-year-old boy. Blanche\'s world of fantasy has
been created by the lies that she cannot seem to stop telling. Stanley knows
her tricks, therefore his attitude toward her is very immodest. Blanche
pretends to be a fair lady but in reality, she is not. She wants to cover her
scandals, and to further a romance with lonely Mitch. In her opinion, lies are
necessary to conceal her \"unlady or uncharming\" features such as
drinking alcohol, her age, and her sickness(ex.\"No one is my limit\"
\"Yes, Stella is my precious little sister. I call her little in spite of
the fact she\'s somewhat older than I. Just slightly. Less than a year.\"
\"Stella hasn\'t been so well lately, and I came down to help her for a
while. She\'s very run down.\"). However, she is somehow conscious of this
falsity (ex.\"I don\'t tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth\").
As her true past comes out, Blanche becomes the only person who believes her
lies. The ending of the play shocks me very much!! When Stella is at the
hospital for delivering a baby, Stanley violates Blanche in the most personal
way which is rape. After this accident, Blanche loses whatever little sense she
has left. Her world becomes a world of almost complete fantasy. As a result of
her insanity, she is send to a mental institution. As Blanche is taken away,
her sister is overcome with feelings of guilt, loss, and betrayal. Perhaps
Stella knows she has made a mistake when she chose not to belive Blanche\'s
story about the rape.However, it\'s too late for deliberation. Blanche is gone,
Stanley has won,things will be back to normal again.
Word Count: 920