Blanche And Stella example essay topic

A Streetcar Named Desire: Analysis From the beginning, the three main characters of Streetcar are in a state of tension. Williams establishes that the apartment is small and confining, the weather is hot and oppressive, and the characters have good reason to come into conflict. The South, old and new, is an important theme of the play. Blanche and her sister come from a dying world. The life and pretensions of their world are becoming a thing of memory: to drive home the point, the family mansion is called 'Belle Reve,' or Beautiful Dream. The old life may have been something beautiful, but it is gone forever.

Yet Blanche clings to pretensions of aristocracy. She is now as poor as Stanley and Stella, but she cannot help but look down on the humble Kowalski apartment. Stanley tells her that she " ll probably see him as 'the unrefined type. ' The differences between them, however, are more complex and volatile than a matter of refinement.

Desire is central to the play. Blanche is unable to come to terms with the force of her own desire. She is clearly repelled and fascinated by Stanley at the same time. And though she stayed behind and took care of the family while Stella ran off to find a new life, Blanche is both angry and jealous of Stella's choice: she seems a bit fixated on the idea of Stella sleeping with her 'Polack. ' Stella has chosen a life built around her powerful sexual relationship with Stanley.

Blanche is both repulsed by and jealous of the choice... The play is haunted by mortality. Desire and death and loneliness are played off against each other again and again. The setting is one of decay; the dying Old South and the dying DuBois family make for a macabre and unsettling background. Blanche's first monologue is a rather graphic description of tending to the terminally ill.

There is also the specter of Blanche's husband, who died when they were both very young; indeed, Blanch still refers to him as a 'boy. ' Another symbol is the meat: Stanley enters carrying a package of bloody meat, like a hunter coming home from a day of work. Stanley is a superb specimen of primitive, unthinking, brutal man. The meat-tossing episode is seen as humorous by Eunice and the Negro Woman, who infer a sexual innuendo from the incident. Apparently, it is obvious to the neighbors that the sexual bond between Stanley and Stella is intense. In their attitudes toward money, we see the tremendous difference in class between them.

Stanley is convinced that he is being swindled, but after a moment it becomes clear that Blanche is capable of no such thing. She cares nothing for money; her class only understands how to spend it, and that is part of why Belle Reve was lost. When Stanley demands if it was lost on a mortgage, Blanche can only respond uncertainly, 'That must have been what happened. ' She is completely ignorant on business matters. Stanley is no expert, but his basic approach is that of a new world, the real world in which Blanch is so unable to survive.

Blanch has suffered terribly; we have only seen hints of it so far, but later we will learn more about the depths of her loneliness. Loneliness and desire are integral to Blanche's being. She chose the harsh road of staying at Belle Reve to care for the dying, and she has suffered because of it. For many years, she was a delicate young woman who lived alone in a house full of the terminally ill. There is both honesty and illusion in her comments about the sincerity of the suffering. On one hand, Blanche is very insincere.

She has dealt with her suffering by making-believe, by taking refuge in fanciful dreams about herself and her surroundings. She lies about her age. She also insists that Mitch cover the naked bulb. She does not want to be seen in the harshness of bright light. In darkness, she is free to fabricate and re-imagine whatever cannot be seen. On the other hand, there is something very sincere about Blanche's affection and kindness.

She lies, but never with the intent to hurt. She seeks to become what she thinks will please others. The streetcar named Desire comes up again as a metaphor. As Blanche and Stella argue about desire, Blanche talks about the rattletrap streetcar.

Stella asks if Blanche has ever ridden it; Blanche says that it brought her here. They " re talking about the literal streetcar, but the symbolism is clear. Blanche denounces the streetcar, just as she denies the power and appeal of desire. But in reality, she has known desire, too. In her loneliness, it's been one of her refuges. As she says of the streetcar, 'It brought me here,' she is speaking also of how her desire and loneliness caused her to be run out of town.

Stanley's overhearing Blanche's denunciation of him will ultimately be disastrous for her. If before they were enemies, now they will become locked in a more serious struggle. Stanley will not be content until Blanche is gone from the apartment, even if it means her destruction. The theme of illusion runs through this scene. We watch Blanche fabricate a series of lies in her telegraph to Shep. She has no qualms about it; the truth is so much less interesting and delightful than the illusion she offers, so why not do it?

But she is not the only character with some fear of the truth. When she confesses to Stella that her behavior in Laurel was less than exemplary, Stella stops listening. She stops listening whenever Blanche is morbid; this convenient ability to block out the truth foreshadows Stella's betrayal of Blanche at the end of the play. Blanche's illusions are quite fragile. Stanley deeply upsets her by hinting that he knows the truth about her. Blanche is rendered vulnerable by this attack; her lies have isolated her, and afterward she gushes with emotion for Stella.

The theme of loneliness, central to the play, is rendered skillfully in this scene. Stella is uncomfortable with these displays of emotion; possibly, they make her feel guilty because Stella is all that Blanche has in the world, and Stella herself has Stanley. Blanche cannot seem to recover from the convulsions of desire. She denounced the physicality of Stanley's and Stella's relationship. But she herself suffers from a terrible loneliness, from which she seeks to escape in inappropriate ways. Her advances at the Young Man are the first direct sign, on stage, that she occasionally seeks desperate remedies for her loneliness.

Remember that in this scene, Blanche has been the lone observer of two happy couples: Stella and Stanley, Steve and Eunice. Left alone in the apartment, she seeks some connection with the first person she sees. Blanche's fatigue after the carnival emphasizes how frail she is. We also see the act that Blanche puts on for Mitch. She pretends to be taken with old-fashioned values. Her need to be the virginal Southern belle isn't malicious in intent.

She indulges in the deception not only to attract Mitch, but for her own sake. Playing the Southern belle gives Blanch great pleasure. It allows her to feel young and unscarred again... Loneliness plays itself out in so many ways throughout the play. Blanche's intense loneliness goes far back; she discovered that the man she loved had a secret life, quite separate from his life with her. Since than, she has been a girl caring for dying relatives.

Mitch, too, is lonely. He had a love who died; he also is caring for his dying mother. Mitch makes Blanche feel safe. He is touchingly gentle and sensitive. In his company, the music fades away, and Blanche notices the difference. She dares to hope that Mitch's entrance into her life is a touch of God helping her.

Blanche's habit of always bathing is symbolic; when she emerges, she always announces that she feels like a new person. The baths are a cleansing ritual, but the feeling of refreshment and renewed strength is not long lasting. We have seen before how frail Blanche is, and how quickly she tires. We also will see that the past does not wash away so easily.

Stanley needs to possess Stella completely. He will not tolerate any kind of equality between them. She is not allowed to ask him for help with the chores. She is not allowed to criticize him.

Stanley yells at her, 'Huey Long said - OE Every man is a King!' And I am the king around here, so don't forget it!' (195). Blanche's presence seems like a threat to his authority. He feels that Stella has become insubordinate since Blanche arrived. His motivations are clear: he is jealous of Blanche, he seeks to preserve his authority, and he delights in the power of hurting another. He is absolutely merciless with Blanche. He gives her the bus ticket in the moment of her Highest vulnerability, knowing full well that she cannot return to Laurel.

He delights in hurting her. Blanche has a difficult time relinquishing illusion. Even as Mitch begins to confront her with the truth, she seeks to brush aside anything that is bothersome. She wants to pretend everything is fine. But she is not a malicious liar; she lies from weakness, from immaturity, from a fear of reality. She tells Mitch that she speaks of the world as it ought to be, and as people would prefer it to be.

She lies because she has a taste for a fantasy life better than her reality. But Mitch continues to insist on the truth, and when Blanche finally gives up her lies, the effect is like a dam breaking. We hear, in chilling and lurid detail, about her escapades in Laurel. The description of the soldiers calling out her name from the lawn of Belle Reve is Williams at his lurid best. The story shows the depths of Blanche's loneliness and depravity; she sought comfort and protection in impossible places, with men who were only interested in one thing.

She might as well have been alone at Bell Reve, and in all the beds she frequented. Blanche is terrifying isolated. In her desperate loneliness, her desires became more and more difficult to control, and more and more unhealthy. Throughout this whole scene, the theme of death and oblivion is underscored (none too subtly) by the vendor selling flowers for the dead.

The flowers recall the deaths of the elderly Dubois family members, and foreshadow Blanche's destruction. Blanche's illusions are not with the intent to hurt. When she speaks of the only unforgivable crime being deliberate cruelty, she's not being hypocritical. As she says, it is a crime of which she has never been guilty. And here, at the end of her rope, she spins out another series of illusions. Unlike before, these lies are not even remotely credible.

She does not seek necessarily to be credible: she only seeks the comfort of fantasy, even if the fantasy is ridiculous. Blanche is drunk, rejected, and about to become a vagabond; all she asks is to be indulged. In this horrible climax, the paired themes of desire and loneliness once again come into focus. Blanch has longed for some kind of contact; she needs company, and the protection of men.

She is not a stranger to desire. But finally, the man she hoped for rejects her, and the man she despises takes her by force. She is not strong enough to offer any resistance; and at the same time, Stanley is right when he says that they " ve had this encounter coming since the beginning. Part of her does long for Stanley; in her loneliness, she is desperate for contact.

Her previous comments indicate that some part of her is fascinated by Stanley's animal nature. The animal side of desire is emphasized by the jungle sound effects outside the apartment. Although Blanche is the character most dependent on illusion throughout the play, it would be too simple to describe Stanley and Stella as representing 'truth. ' Stella is able to stay with Stanley only after a monumental act of self-deception. Stella tells Eunice that she wouldn't be able to stay with Stanley if she believed Blanche's story.

Eunice's response is telling. She tells Blanche not to believe it, but she does not seem interested in trying to see if the story is true or not. The priority is believing whatever it takes in order to go on with life: 'No matter what happens,' she says, 'you " ve got to keep on going. ' Eunice advises dismissing the accusation outright, and doing whatever it takes to go on living. Blanche's famous line is full of terrible irony. It is true that Blanche has often depended on the kindness of strangers, but all of them have abused and abandoned her.

In the end, even her own sister has betrayed her. Her fragility, her inability to fend for herself, and her self-deception have brought her to madness. The representative of the new man, Stanley, is more ape than knight. But Blanche's line is earnest in that it shows her terrible loneliness.

For so long, she has known only strangers; young girl in a house full of the dying, and then a woman losing her looks seeking protection from callous men. Her tragedy will for the most part be forgotten. Stella is crying, but she has nonetheless decided to stay with Stanley. She also will have to busy herself with caring for the baby. The other men have callously chosen to go on with their poker game on this day, denying Blanche the dignity of being taken away in private.

The Old South dies, and the New South does not mourn her passing. Everyone is going to move on: as the play ends, Steve is already dealing a new hand. Sources: Streetcar Named Desired by Ten esse Williams North on Anthology web.