Streetcar Timed Essay...

Victoria Carlos

Period 3

September 7, 2011

A Streetcar Named Desire Timed Essay

In the play a Streetcar named Desire, Tennessee Williams highlights the values of a culture or a society by using characters who are alienated from culture and society. In the Novel, the character Stanley Kowalski, shows numerous examples of negative acts against society which are seen to him as something he has the right to, because of his gender.

To society, Stanley Kowalski is the epitome of a family man; loving, caring, veteran, and hard working. But, by the end of the novel his true colors are shown. Not only does he repeatedly try to destroy Blanches status in the community, be he goes as far as to abuse his wife, and rape Blanche. Stanley shows no remorse for his actions and no one sees Stanley any differently, all though Blanche is detested by society. At the end of the novel Stanley is seen as the perfect family man comforting his wife and new born baby. I feel that this is a representation of how in the past society was in a sense blind. We accepted things that are seen as cruel, morally and ethically wrong. Stanley’s action show how society most likely did not see how his actions were wrong, because all they knew is what they were told which is that promiscuous women get what they get, and men have ultimate power. Men were not punished for their actions in a morally correct manor. Because of this unjust society Stanley is a hero, while Blanche is shunned.

In the novel A streetcar named desire, Blanche is seen as a “fallen women”. She is has an openly sexual dimeaner, she is widowed because her husband commit suicide, and she has a horrible drinking problem. When she meets someone she is interested in, she lies hysterically to help society accept her, which in returns leads to an even more negative impact on her character because she ends up doing things to appear attractive sexually. This leads to men treating her with sexual admiration, which gives her even more bad attention. Blanche DuBois makes society truly question her character, and gives them a reason to outcast her as a harlet. To society a women who is constantly needing a males sexual attention is not proper, and not the ‘”southern way”. She is constantly fighting her urges to become acceptable to society.

in the play A streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams uses the characters Stanley Kowalski, and Blanche DuBois to show society’s pressure, and acceptable values. These two characters show both extremes of the positive and negative characteristics society has known.