A Streetcar Named Desire | Blanche And Stella Analysis

A trolley Named inclination Blanche And Stella AnalysisTennessee Williams was Americas most polemic lookwright. He was marked by his troubled orphic life and was constantly struggling with his own self-doubts. Nevertheless he was the dramatist, who produced few of the most compelling whole kit and boodle for the American theatre. In 1947 Tennessee Williams set refreshing standards for American drama with his masterpiece A Streetcar Named proneness. The recreate opened on December 3, 1947, and was genuine with great accl fetch. Neither the theatre audience at the premier evening, nor the audiences at the other 844 performances, which the play gave on Broadway, were disappointed and made A Streetcar Named go for Williams secondment success on Broadway later on his triumph with The Glass Menagerie.1Down to the pre move day A Streetcar Named Desire has not lost its enormous fame and fascination. A reason for the perpetual popularity of the play is probably the position th at Williams is the only American playwright, who is able to analyze women with such(prenominal) subtlety and compassion2. Hence, critics such as genus Felicia Hardison Londr denote Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire also as a lyrical drama to the highest degree the dec delimitate and fall of Blanche DuBois3. With this statement Londr emphasizes that dickens, the character as well as the inner development of Blanche Dubois, ar the focus of attention in Williams play. However, in my way of thinking, it is not only crucial to examine the Blanches character in detail, but also to study the character of the plays second distaff protagonist Stella, Blanches infant, more closely.Hence, the aim of this seminar paper is to compare and contrast the characters of the dickens sisters. At the start-off of the paper the authors biographical context and the bibliographical taradiddle of A Streetcar Named Desire are discussed. In fix to lay the foundations for a diminutive chara cterization of the two female protagonists, chapter two contains a brief summary of the plays plot, focussing on the inbred developments of Blanche and Stella. Afterwards, a detailed analysis of Blanches and Stellas character follows. Finally, the most important findings are briefly summed up in the conclusion.2. Tennessee Williams and his masterpiece A Streetcar Named DesireIn order to be able to fully ambit the meaning of Tennessee Williams celebrated play A Streetcar Named Desire, it is absolutely necessary to take the authors biographical context as well as the works bibliographical fib into account.biographic contextLike in several of his other plays, also the plot of A Streetcar Named Desire was watertightly influenced by Williams own biographical background. Tennessee Williams himself stated once that A Streetcar Named Desire was his favourite(a) play since it said everything I had to say4.Williams never concealed that his works reflect his own hi tale and even welcomed comparisons in the midst of his own life and the characters in A Streetcar Named Desire. In a controversial interview with Robert Jennings he explicitly compared himself with his character Blanche DuBois I can completely identify with Blanche we are both hysterics. Many critics, such as Nancy Tischler, Roger Asse simple eyeau, or Kenneth Holditch, asserted that there are several other tie in between Blanche and Williams. In a garner to his agent Audrey Wood he wrote the following sentence, which again stresses his strong identification with the dramatis personae of his play I was and still am Blanche but I have a Stanley in me, too.5Nevertheless, the connections between Blanche and Tennessee Williams are not always uncomplicated.In contrast to Tischler, Asselineau and Holditsch, other critics regard the relationship between Blanche and Stanley as a reflection of the contours of Williams life. They claim that Blanche and Stanley re put divisions of Williams own complex life and personality. Yet studies conducted by John Clum, Mark Lilly and David Savran arrive at another conclusion. All three see Blanche and Stanley as a projection of Tennessee Williams homoerotic desires. Clum, for instance, says that the actions of his heterosexual female character Blanche hide a homosexual subtext.6Bibliographical historySimilar to other of Williams plays the plot of A Streetcar Named Desire evolved over several years.7Tennessee Williams drew, for instance, much of his inhalant from his life in the French Quarter of New Orleans. During his time in New Orleans he lived on Royal Street. Two streetcars where running down the street. One of the two streetcars was named Desire.8Accordingly the title of Williams play is among other things an illusion to this particular streetcar.In the early 1940s he outlined the story line as well as his idea for a film version in a letter to his agent Audrey Wood. In this first draft of A Streetcar Named Desire, the play was a one-act dram a.9The story line was mainly based upon a scene which he had written earlier.The plot was murky, but I await to see a woman sitting in a chair, waiting in vain for something. peradventure love. Moon rays were streaming through the window and that suggested lunacy. I wrote the scene and titled it Blaches Chair in the Moon.10In the goal, Tennessee Williams had written twelve different drafts for A Streetcar Named Desire. Each of his drafts had a different title, such as The Poker Night or The Moth, and was first set in Chicago, then in battle of Atlanta and in the long run in New Orleans.Due to the influence of Elia Kazan, an influential Greek-American director, who staged the play and tell the film version of A Streetcar named Desire, Williams revised his work several times through and after its production, which had a considerable effect on the script of A Streetcar Named Desire. By changing the characters nationality as well as their conception and motivation he transformed the play from a romance to a tragedy. While writing, Williams had to grapple two major problems firstly, the relationship between Blanche and Stanley, and secondly, the varying degrees and onset of Blaches madness.11Furthermore, quaternary early one-act plays, which were written around 1945, had an impact on A Streetcar named Desire. The first one of these plays is This retention is Condemned, a play focusing on a young girls desires to be resembling her dead sister, who was a prostitute. The second play, entitled Portrait of a Madonna, chronicles the story of an old maid sent to an asylum after hallucinating. In contrast to the first two plays, The Lady of Larkspur Lotion focuses on a faded southern belle, who had become a prostitute. Moreover, parallels can also be found in hullo from Bertha, a play submiting with a dying prostitute begging her ex-lover to rescue her.In access to the numerous different drafts of A Streetcar Named Desire, several different editions of the play ha ve been printed up to the present day. For instance, there are substantial differences between the reading and the acting editions. Some differences can also be identified between the American and the English version. In the American version, for instance, the homosexuality of Blanches husband was censored. some other difference is the structure of the play. In the British edition the play is divided into three acts, whereas the play consists of eleven successive scenes in other editions.12The roles of Blanche DuBois and Stella Kowalski in the plot of A Streetcar Named DesireIn order to lay the foundations for the characterization of Blanche DuBois and Stella Kowalski, I would like to give a brief summary of the contents of Tennessee Williams play. Since the aim of this paper is to compare and contrast the characters of the two female protagonists, special attention has hereby been paid to the internal development of Blanche and Stella.In scene one Blanche, a faded southern belle, arrives at the home of her jr. sister Stella in a fairly run-down district of New Orleans. She is shocked about the hatful in which Stella and her husband live and makes no secret of her disapproval. After a warm reunion of the two sisters, Blanche explains that she has taken time out from school, where she is teaching English, because of her upset mental state. Later she further admits that she has lost Belle Reve, their family realm in Mississippi. Although Belle Reve slipped through Blanches fingers, she reproaches Stella for not returning to her home to help her with the troubles. When Stanley returns with his friends from the bowling alley, he accepts Blanches presence however, the atmosphere between Blanche and Stanley is reach from the beginning.While Blanche is bathing the next day, Stella tells Stanley about the loss of Belle Reve. He immediately suspects Blanche of having swindled them about the reasons for the loss of the family estate. As a result of Stanleys mistrus t the relationship between Stanley and Blanche becomes more problematic. The smirch even becomes worse when Stanley starts inquiring Blanche about the circumstances for the loss of Belle Reve and by it he discovers a bundle of old love letters, which reveal Blanches marriage to a young man, who finally died. Also Stanley discloses a secret and tells Blanche about Stellas pregnancy.In the next scene Stanley and his friends are playing poker, when Blanche and Stella return from an evening out together. One of them, Mitch, is very politely to Blanche and pays her compliments. Also Blanche notices that he is superior to the others13. In contrast to Mitch, Stanley, who has had already one too many, is not delighted about the appearance of the two women. The situation gets out of hand and Stanley beats pregnant wife. Blanche protectively rushes Stella upstairs, but Stanley begs his wife to return to him. In the end Stella, who is somehow attracted by his animal behavior, forgives her h usband and spends the night with him.As scene four opens, it is the following first light and Stella and Blanche are having a private discussion about Stanley. Blanche can obviously not understand why Stella was insane enough to come back in here after what had happened14and tries to persuade her sister to bequeath him. She tells her of a millionaire, a former admirer of hers, who surely would give them money to start a new life. Yet Stella makes clear that she is not willing to leave her husband and embraces Stanley passionately in front of Blanche, when he sees him come in, to demonstrate her loyalty to him. However, both women do not know that Stanley overheard a good deal of what they said before.Over the course of the summer (scene five and six) it becomes clear that Blanche and Mitch have a deep center for each other. Blanche event entrusts him with details about her brief marriage, which was overshadowed by her husbands homosexuality and his felo-de-se after she had disco vered him in bed with another man. Meanwhile, Stanley makes inquiries about Blanches past and unmasks her distinguished behaviour as hypocrisy. He learns about her numerous one night stands and her affair with a seventeen-year-old boy, which led to her dismissal. motion picture seven takes place at Blanches Birthday. Stanley, who is craving to get rid of his sister-in-law, passes the gathered information on to Mitch, who does not longer wish to marry her since she is not clean enough to bring in the admit with his mother15. Unlike Mitch, Stella is not impressed by her husbands story. At the beginning she is denying his reproaches but, as the list lengthens, she defends her sister by referring to her tragic marriage. The mood at Blanches birthday dinner (scene eight) is tense and miserable, because Mitch does not show up. The situation reaches its climax when Stanley presents Blanche with a bus ticket back to Laurel. Blanche is insulted and rushes out. At this indorsement Stella fe els her first labour pains and requests to be taken to hospital.Later the same evening (scene nine), Mitch drops by to deliver Blanche with the rumours of her past. Finally, she admits her failures but immediately justifies her behaviour by explaining that her loneliness after her husbands death strained her to seek physical affection. After her confession Mitch, who is drunk, tries to rape her, but Blanche manages to kick him out of the apartment.In the consequent scene Stanley returns fairly cheerful, but drunk, from hospital where Stella is still in labour. At home, he meets Blanche, who is drunk too. Her claim, that she has received a telegram from an oil magnate inviting her on a cruise, is her last attempt to escape into her piece of illusions. First Stanley takes the situation with humour until she lies to him about what has happened between her and Mitch. Stanley becomes aggressive and rapes her. This act of violence results in Blanches absolute nervous breakdown. Althou gh Blanche informs Stella that her husband has committed a crime, she decides not to leave him since she couldnt believe her story and go on living with Stanley16. At Stanleys request Blanche is admitted to a mental hospital some weeks later (scene eleven). The fact that she believes until the end that she is going on holiday with an admirer (who is actually the doctor) again emphasizes her no-count mental condition. Even though Stella is not completely convinced that it was the right decision to admit her sister to a mental home, she makes no attempt to prevent it.