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 rom 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 iolence 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 ickness(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 iolates 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.