Streetcar
Throughout the 1950's many revolutions took place. There was a loss of idealism. The end of what would be called "the golden age" brought upon the children of the fifties a sense of illegitimacy and unimportance. The 50s brought in the music of Elvis Presley, and Jerry Lee Lewis and the entertainment value of the Annie Oakley show. All of which had a certain revolutionary quality. Elvis brought America sex appeal and caused what was later seen as a great loss of morality among the children of the time. The Annie Oakley show was one of the first television shows to have a woman as a main character and the first to depict a true heroine. Also, in the 1950's there was a significant amount of intolerance; intolerance toward, blacks, and other minorities, but mostly towards women. In analyzing the characters of the A Streetcar Named Desire, especially Blanche DuBois, we see these themes show up repeatedly. The drama, A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, reflects the 1950s by its depiction of sexual mores, intolerance and the end of idealism. Before one can understand Blanche's character one must understand the reason why she moves to New Orleans and joins her sister, Stella, and brother-in-law, Stanley. By an
However, she could not escape "death" for long. She was a teacher at a high school, and at one point she had intimacies with a seventeen year old student. The superintendent, "Mr. Graves", found out about this and she was fired from her job. Her image was totally destroyed and she could no longer stay there. "Mr. Graves" sent her on her next stop of the symbolic journey- "Cemeteries". Her final destination was "Elysian Fields". This is the place of the living dead. Blanche came to Elysian Fields to forget her horrible past, and to have a fresh start in life (Quirino 63). In fact, Blanche admits in the fourth scene that she wants to "make myself a new life" (Williams 135). The person whom Blanche is most directly contrasted with is Stanley. Blanche loves living in an idealistic world, while Stanley strictly relies on facts. Blanche makes up a good portion of her past for the majority of the play. When she was young she lived an eloquent life in a mansion, but she eventually lost it due to unpaid bills. She tells everyone this part of her history but neglects to tell them what she had done during the interim period, before she came to Elysian Fields. Ms. DuBois never told them about the promiscuous life she lived before she came. Stanley, on the other hand, persisted in trying to find out her true past throughout the story. Considering that this is Stanley's house, his domain, it is easy to see that this spells doom for Blanche. It seems so easy for Blanche to deceive others in this way, this tells us much about the morality of the time period. The scene when Stanley rapes Blanche is the beginning of the end for Blanche. Sex is her most obvious weakness. That is the reason why she ran to New Orleans in the first place. Since she had come to New Orleans she had tried to avoid it. But, once again, Stanley is in direct contrast to this. Williams describes him: "Since earliest manhood the center of his life has been pleasure with women, . . . He sizes them up at a glance, with sexual classifications, crude images flashing into his mind and determining the way he smiles at them."(Corrigan 57) The louder Stanley gets on insisting on the undeniable facts about Blanche, the louder Blanche sings (Corrigan 53). This is a symbolic collision of their two philosophies. Stella, the link between the two, must listen to the facts given to her by Stanley, and the virtues of idealism given to her by Blanche. Stanley is showing a lot of intolerance in this scene, and here we see that Williams is using Stanley to depict those who criticize a romantics as well as Williams' own lifestyle. Being gay, Williams knew of intolerance more than anyone, and projected this theme through Stanley.
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2316
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)
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