Streetcar Essay, Joanna Tung, Period 4, ASHER

Prompt: Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed. Choose a play or novel in which such a character plays a significant role and show how that character’s alienation reveals the surrounding society’s assumptions and moral values.

The Streetcar Named Desire

Moral values in a society were to be set and not easily broken. Those are the laws that govern everyday life by its finest and of the ideas that people hold the dearest. However, there are always people who would be labeled as the “outcasts” and eventually be forgotten or despised by the society. In “The Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams, Blanche is such a character who represents the minority in the minority. Her oppressed life doesn’t only show her alienation from the society, but also the alienation of her soul from her mind in reality. Her strange acts due to the psychological isolation prove how the assumptions and values of society deeply affect her and destroy her life.

The discrimination and belittlement towards woman clearly shows the significance of masculinity in that time period. As female, Blanche cannot hold a high position, and many times wouldn’t be taken seriously. Her thoughts were not to be believed many times, and by means, her sister, Stella, also goes through the same experiences, except those are given by her husband every since she is married. The way man treats woman in this novel clearly represents the statue of woman and their role in the society. They are portrayed as low self-esteemed and unable to take control in important situations.

With Blanche’s crafted disguise, many were fooled by her innocent looks and background. Because of the alienation of this society towards those who are low class, she wants to start fresh so she eventually hides her past. Blanche is a tragic character, shaped by the values of the society, who wants to be accepted by society, but cannot be honest as the result.

In the end, when she is found out as a woman who drove her homosexual husband into suicide, Blanche becomes an even more low status woman in the eyes of other men. She is not “pure” anymore, and Stanly eventually treats Blanche as a prostitute and shamelessly rapes her. The occurrence of those events shows the moral belief during that time period heavily depends upon one’s worth in the eyes of the norm. The alienation is caused by prejudice views without the company of the virtue of kindness.