A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

     

"a movie poster based on the Novel"

      A Streetcar Named Desire is a play pervaded by the atmosphere of personal and collective decline. A dichotomy of good and evil, pure and corrupt, true and fake is reigning supreme in the play. Tennessee Williams creates his characters to observe upon the societal downfalls. In fact, the play delves into the mechanisms and inner workings of its characters. This essay will show how characters in the play are two dimensional. It will mainly focus on Blanche and Stanley and their stark differences.  

           Blanche and Stanley are the two cardinal characters in the play. They are emotionally charged. Brought to the fore, Blanche is represented as a complex and dynamic character for she experiences a radical change as the plot unfolds. More to the point, her physical portrait delineates an aristocratic decent lady.  She is the representative of the old south, the woman that travels to an environment where her sense of decline and decay is going to be intensified.

Since the first encounter of Blanche and Stanley, the conflict between these two antagonistic characters is already traced. As for Stanley, he does not show any courtesy and respect for his sister in law which is transpired through his words “I never met a dame yet that didn't know if she was good-looking or not without being told, and there's some of them that give themselves credit for more than they've got.”

Stanley, in essence, is a man of facts and truths. He does everything to the extreme. He loves Stella and hates Blanche- a man who is all animal passion and male hormones. Indeed, Blanche sees him as a primitive ape driven only by instinct. Moreover, he is a controlling and domineering man, demanding subservience from his wife in the belief that his authority is threatened by Blanche's arrival. He is portrayed as a violent man; his mind and body are animalistic”.  His behaviour lacks refinement in manners since he embodies only brutal physical force. For instance, he roars, he stakes claim on his territory. He uses his fists. When Stella leaves him, he reverts to a primal form almost incapable of forming a sentence.

On the contrary, Blanche is epitomized as an intricate figure in the play. She represents the south with its aristocratic pretentions and obsolete values of property, respect and sophistication. She comes to her sister’s apartment wearing the mask of propriety of a clean and pure woman. Yet, behind this façade lies a hidden reality that of a disreputable past. In fact, she wasted the family heritage by leading an extravagant lifestyle and a promiscuous life.

To escape her harsh reality, she reconstructs her own world based on make – belief and illusions. Illusion tends to be an outlet from reality for Blanche, to borrow her words “I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic. I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don't tell truths. I tell what ought to be truth”. In the play, Blanche is compared to a butterfly. Consequently, the analogy between both is that they show a beautiful façade. In fact, behind this façade, Blanche hides a decimated and damaged woman vulnerable to others as she puts it “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers”.

Furthermore, the protagonist tries to hide in a glorified past constructed by her imagination. In this vein, illusions mingle with reality in order to make the cruel life of Blanche more sufferable.

Conversely, Stanley embodies the harsh reality in its brutal aspects without any mask or beautification. In fact, his presence disquiets her and makes her unsettled for he is the one who sees through her lies. He is going to be crucial in awakening her from that imaginary world she created and has lived in ever since. Blanche is then represented as a convulsive liar but Stanley is her sole threat who is going to puncture her fake world which would only aggravate the situation. Namely, Blanche’s life was driven by desire in Elysian Fields which is a place where the dead are buried, as her last hope was shattered she ends up alive yet in an asylum where she will be isolated from the whole world and drowning in her own memories and old glorious past.

The two major characters in the play have a slight different reaction towards Stella. Stanley wants her to be the submissive wife. When Blanche arrives and these roles lose their permanence, Stanley reacts with violent force. He does whatever it takes to restore his relationship according to his laws. They end up representing the image of a perfect family.

With her sister, Stella proves to play the traditional role. As soon as Blanche entered the apartment and tried to invade her sister’s private space, Stanley took hold of the situation.

To sum up, the relationship between the two major characters in the play seems to be tense as Stanley wants to reveal her private life bringing up painful memories she is trying to escape through illusions and lies. Tensions grow stronger that Stanley reveals all her lies which make her relapse into madness.