Desire is a topic that remains ever present in the play a streetcar called Desire by Tennessee Williams. Each character in the play is driven by the desire that they want fulfilled. Blanche and Stella are two sisters that have very different desire. Blanche desires stability, a new start, and a second chance. While Stella desire to have a happy marriage, to help her sister and for peace in her house. To achieve all her desire Blanche believes that all she needs a husband. For Stella the only way to see her desire come to true is by deciding to either side with her husband or her sister.
Blanche’s desire for a second chance and a fresh new start in anyplace other than Laurel leads her to Elysian Fields, where she falls for another character named Mitch. She see him as a chance to finally get the love she missed out on in her first marriage and also as hope that when she cannot hide her age anymore she would not be an old maid. However what awaits her when she gets to Elysian Fields its nothing like she expected. She does not get along with her sisters husband and he can see past her lies. And because of Stanley everything did not go according to her plans. For Stella her sister showing up in her house was the beginning of the troubles in her marriage. The peace and tranquility her and her husband shared because their marriage was based on their attractions for each other was destroyed. In her house there was constant fighting, always between her husband and her sister or sometimes even them to. Stella only wish was to help her sister not to have to choose between them during their fights. After this all she desired was to have peace in her house and for happy life with her husband.
These characters desires are all lead by their want to make their current situation better. For Blanche in fulfilling her desire for stability by getting married she would no longer have to worry about being a thirty years old woman with no husband, no place to live and no way to financially take care of herself. In getting herself a husband it would have ensure that all her fears would go away, but the deceit she was playing made it impossible for that to happen. Her disappointment at not being able to achieve her desires led to her revealing just how much she was living in her own reality and made sister who was already struggling with the decision of what to do help send her to a asylum. Stella had to decide on what was best for her, her baby and her marriage. She could not keep harboring her sister who was running her marriage. Stella had realized that there was no way to have her desire of having a peaceful house with her sister and husband living in the same house.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Blanche Revealed
Tennessee William wrote the play “A streetcar named Desire” with characters that all have very different personalities. The character Blanche is the aging older sister of Bella. She is portrayed as a high maintenance, weak person. She plays the part of a Southern Belle effortlessly because she grew up in a ranch style house, Belle Reve, located in Laurel.
When she arrived at Bella's house after getting fired from her job she criticized everything, complaining about how small the rooms looked and how Bella had lowered herself to marry a “common” man. However regardless of how Blanche reacts to Bella Life in New Orleans she cares and loves her sister. This side of Blanche is revealed in scene 3 when Blanche goes to look for her sister the morning after Bella’s husband had beat her even though she was pregnant. Blanche went to her sister with real concern for her well-being because she believes that Bella is living with a “mad” man. To help her sister she came up with a plan to get both her and her sister away from Stanley. Blanche actions revealed her in a new light, no longer was she the sister that is self center and only cares about her self and looking young. She acted like an older sister should, she wanted to protect her little sister from her abusive alcoholic husband. As we read about what she did we her actions shed light on how much she actually cares for her sister by trying sincerely to get her away from her brute of a husband. Her actions showed that she knew how a husband was to treat his wife and being drunk does not give him an excuse to treat a pregnant woman the way he did.
Another scene where we can also infer that there is more to Blanche that we as the readers initially saw is in scene 6 and 8 where talks about her marriage to Mitch. She tells him what happened between her and the boy she married when she was only eighteen. She also tells him the truth about why she came to Elysian Fields. She was a woman in love who married the person she love only to find out that he had been lying to her. The way Blanche describes what happened makes the reader sympathize with her and in way understand why she is the way she is. After going through that pain because of love she just wants to find someone to really love her so that she will not be alone. We can also infer that the lies she told were because after losing everything she had nobody and believed that as she gets older she will not be able to find someone to settle down with so she had to do what she could to make sure that did not happen.
When she arrived at Bella's house after getting fired from her job she criticized everything, complaining about how small the rooms looked and how Bella had lowered herself to marry a “common” man. However regardless of how Blanche reacts to Bella Life in New Orleans she cares and loves her sister. This side of Blanche is revealed in scene 3 when Blanche goes to look for her sister the morning after Bella’s husband had beat her even though she was pregnant. Blanche went to her sister with real concern for her well-being because she believes that Bella is living with a “mad” man. To help her sister she came up with a plan to get both her and her sister away from Stanley. Blanche actions revealed her in a new light, no longer was she the sister that is self center and only cares about her self and looking young. She acted like an older sister should, she wanted to protect her little sister from her abusive alcoholic husband. As we read about what she did we her actions shed light on how much she actually cares for her sister by trying sincerely to get her away from her brute of a husband. Her actions showed that she knew how a husband was to treat his wife and being drunk does not give him an excuse to treat a pregnant woman the way he did.
Another scene where we can also infer that there is more to Blanche that we as the readers initially saw is in scene 6 and 8 where talks about her marriage to Mitch. She tells him what happened between her and the boy she married when she was only eighteen. She also tells him the truth about why she came to Elysian Fields. She was a woman in love who married the person she love only to find out that he had been lying to her. The way Blanche describes what happened makes the reader sympathize with her and in way understand why she is the way she is. After going through that pain because of love she just wants to find someone to really love her so that she will not be alone. We can also infer that the lies she told were because after losing everything she had nobody and believed that as she gets older she will not be able to find someone to settle down with so she had to do what she could to make sure that did not happen.
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