Desire

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.