Streetcar Named Desire

Abi Smith

Price 3

A Streetcar Named Desire Notebook

Characters

Blanche

Tennessee Williams unconventional protagonist, Blanche DuBois, is a woman in her late twenties, who spirals into despair due to her own lies and tragedy that she has created for herself. Despite her ever growing and changing stories, Blanche is a static character. Williams illustrates Blanche as a symbol of the decline of past social hierarchy in 1940s America that is stuck in its past traditions. The only dynamic trait about Blanche is her lies. At first the lies that Blanche parades are a small little lies about “[her not liking] a bed that gives much” only trying to act flexible with her new environment (16). She tries to spare Stella of details and acts that she is just fine with this new living arrangement. Despite Blanche lying to Stella about how she does not mind her new atmosphere, she is lying to herself. These lies forward Blanche’s motive to fit in with a new group of people and a new style of living, only because she has no one left who is attached to her previous life style. Although Williams’s protagonist new surroundings are diverse to her, Blanche still remains static in her ways, which causes her mind to try to revert and play things over and over again until it seems real to her. Blanche’s new change of pace is due to that she is lonely and has no one else to turn to, which would also make her want to create stories for more attention. Although Blanche is jaundiced by her sister’s state of equanimity in her relationship, even if Stella’s marriage to Stanley is problematic, it is the stableness within their love that she longs for. Blanche dreamily menchens, “[she guesses]that is what is meant by being in love,” once she hears how highly Stella talks about Stanley and her feeling for him (19). Blanche desires to be loved and needed by people, which is why she has tention with Stanley because both are in a power struggle for Stella’s attention. After Blanche hears Stella’s love for Stanley she is immediately jealous and then she throws her feelings about her losing the Belle Reve and yells “where [was Stella], in bed with [her] Polack,” which insults Stella and Stanley all at once before even meeting them as a couple (22). As  Blanches stay progresses so does her jealousy for Stella and Stanley’s relationship and thus more lies begin. Blanche starts out her biggest lie yet asking if she “remember[s] Shep Huntleigh,” and then “ [Stella shakes her head]” already noticing that this is another one of Blanche’s infamous “her rich boyfriend is better than Stanley” kind of story (75). After she spews lies and nonsense past her lips, she then proceeds to punching Stanley’s personality in the face by telling Stella  “he acts like an animal, has an animal's habits, eats like one, moves like one, talks like one,” she says this flustered with jealousy.  At first just a lie to make Stella believe that she is inferior to Blanche, because of her jealousy, then it turns more real and Blanche starts writing a letter to him. Then towards the end of the play she says Shep “then--just now--this wire--inviting me on a cruise of the Caribbean’ which is when she is the most delusional trying to repress her lonely love life (153). She ends up spewing all this nonsense in front of Stanley to make him jealous which worked because then Stanley raped her. Williams paints the perfect tragic heroine, because the audience wants to feel sorry for her because she is lonely and relatable with her existential issues that create even more issues.

Stanley

Stanley is a power hungry, misogynistic man of the house and anyone who challenges his authority in his domain is  in return challenged physically. Because of Stanley’s need to be in charge of everything around him, when he finds out about the loss of the  Belle Reve he immediately believes he was “swindled” by Blanche (33). Stanley’s reaction to losing the Belle Reve was yelling at his wife, because “[Stella] think[s] she got [her fancy clothes] out of a teacher’s pay” when he thinks that she obviously sold the Belle Reve (33). Stanley is angry about her “selling” the Belle Reve without telling Stella, because if Stella is the only one left who has a say in the ordeal, since he is her husband, he would make a profit from it. This causes Stanley’s cold and flustered exterior to show when he is not in charge even in a situation that is already over. Since he could not be in control of what happens to the Belle Reve, he feels that he has to compensate with invading Blanche's trunk and criticizing her items. He then comes at Blanche with the Napoleonic code, but then she brushes off because she can see that he really has no idea what he talking about. Stanley is constantly boasting to Blanche, because he can see that she is having an effect on Stella, so he is trying to come off more dominant that her and her ideas. His wall between his exterior emotions and interior emotions is thick (unlike Blanche) he only engages on his emotions when he is at his lowest point. His emotional side is exposed when he thinks he has lost Stella. Due to Stanley’s own lack of self-control after he strikes Stella in a drunken rage, once he thought he had lost her “breaks into sobs” and screams “STELLLAHHHHH” outside of their apartment building (66). Even though Williams's creates moments in which the audience wants to sympathize with Stanley he turns around and rapes Blanche and physically abuses Stella which ultimately labels him as the antagonist. Stanley believes that the problems that are in his and Stella’s relationship cannot be solved right now because there are too many distractions. Stanley thinks that everything will “be all right after [Blanche] goes and after [Stella has] the baby,” then he goes off reminiscing about his radical intercource with Stella (133). Stanley is weak due to his need to make an excuse for his failing sex based marriage, which causes him to try to make up for it by using animalist alpha male tactics like hitting Stella and raping Blanche. Williams’s antagonist is a perfect foil to the protagonist and their differences on how each deals with their issues.

Blanche and Stanley

A major scene in Streetcar is when Blanche and Stanley first meet. Williams puts a playful amount of sexual tension between the two, because both are unable to relate to the opposite sex in a non-sexual way. Blanche attempts to play it cool when Stanley asks if he can make himself comfortable,  he says “be comfortable is [his] motto,”  Blanche trying to get on Stanley’s good side says “it's [hers], too,” then she gets frantic and says she was prepared to look fresh when he walked in (26). Blanche’s only way of meeting a male and getting them to like her is through flirtatious gestures and lying to agree with them. Williams adds this sexual tension early on in Streetcar to display that desire is there with in their conversation and that it is undeniable and both of them must act on it.