A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Research Paper free essay sample

A Streetcar Named Desire Essay, Research Paper The Realistic View-Point of A Streetcar Named Desire Through out the 20th century, many great authors have come along and altered the populace? s ideas of normalcy, and in many instances shocked their audiences by showing them with the barbarous truth. This is precisely what the play A Streetcar Named Desire accomplished. Whether, deliberately or accidentally, Tennessee Williams succeeded in exemplifying the demand to bury what was in the past and stressed the thought of looking in front to the hereafter. The usage of realistic play at the clip were about unheard of, and Williams succeeded in going an pioneer by puting the foundation for the usage of dramas with subjects of pragmatism in modern dramatic theatre. ? Williams synthesizes deepness word picture, typical of play that strives to be an semblance of world, with symbolic theatrics # 8230 ; In short, pragmatism and the theatricalism, frequently viewed as phase challengers, complement each other in this drama ( Mary Ann Corrigan, 575 ) . ? Thomas ( Tennessee ) Lanier Williams was born on March 26 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi. His male parent, Cornelius Coffin Williams, was a shoe salesman who spent a good trade of his clip out on the route off from his household. Williams had two siblings, one older sister and one younger brother. The kids spent most of their childhood in the place of their maternal expansive male parent who was an Episcopal curate. In 1927, Williams received his first gustatory sensation of literary acclamation when he placed 3rd in a national essay competition, for his essay entitled? Can a Good Wife Be a Good Sport? . ? After high school Williams studied for several old ages at the University of Missouri, but dropped out before he received a grade. Williams so took a occupation in St. Louis at the International Shoe Company where his male parent worked. Williams did finally return to college and received a grade from the University of Iowa in 1938. In 1939, Williams moved to New Orleans where he officially adopted the name? Tennessee, ? which was the province of his gramps? s birth. In 1945 Williams had his first existent large success as a author, with his drama? The Glass Menagerie? doing its debut on Broadway. Williams went ain to compose 25 full lengthier dramas, including A Streetcar Named Desire, he produced tonss of short dramas and screen dramas, two novels, sixty short narratives, over one 100 verse forms, and an car life. For these plants Williams received many awards including two Pulitzer Prizes, one for A Streetcar Named Desire, and four New York Drama Critic Awards, one for A Streetcar Named Desire ( Tom Sullivan, 1 ) . When asked by a newsman why he began composing, Williams replied by saying? Why did I compose? Because I found life Unsatisfactory ( Steven Daniels,1 ) . ? ? Williams has written some of the most moving play of the modern theatre ( John Whitty, 575 ) . ? The realistic constructs displayed in A Streetcar Named Desire are best exemplified through the conflicting characters of Blanche DuBois, and Stanley Kowalski. Blanch posses as an semblance established in an attempt of prolonging her normalcy, portraying herself as a Southern belle, a all right, cultured, beaming immature adult female. This false sense of individuality is put up as a forepart to hide the world of her individuality as a lonely, alcoholic, prostitutive adulteress. This disenchantment is forced out of her by Stanley, the barbarian womaniser, who possesses animalistic values. Stanley succeeds in depriving off Blanche? s false egoistic semblances and coercing her to confront his animalistic world ( Mary Ann Corrigan, 575 ) . This incident is symbolically represented in the play when Stanley forces Blanch into the direct visible radiation of the lamp, symbolically edifying her on the absurdness of her disenchantment. These two character service as contrasting figures representative of the mundane battle of world poetries disenchantment, in which world, as it did in the drama, normally comes out as the master. The one key factor which makes this drama realistic is the fact that Williams gives the character both positive and negative personality traits, which makes the drama easier to associate to by the audience and makes the secret plan seem like it truly could hold occurred. In puting the characters of Blanche and Stanley against each other, Williams depicts an image of the weak being defeated by the strong. Dispite this fact, Stanley represents an equivocal moral character. Even though he possess a unsmooth outside of animalistic and barbarian values he truly loves and needs his married woman ( Mary Ann Corrigan, 575 ) . Therefore farther increasing the overall credibility of the play and adding to the credential grounds of its realistic content. Blanche DuBois is the prototype of the tragic hero. She is a liberated adult female who Michigans at nil to acquire what she wants. Her tragic defect lies in her false pretenses, and disillusioned position s of what life is truly similar. ? Blanche is frequently regarded as a symbol of disintegrating tradition, beauty, and polish pitted in a losing conflict against the petroleum verve of the progressive mainstream ( Felicia Hardison Londre, 79 ) . ? In the contention of Blanche poetries Stanley, it is apparent that Williams sides with Blanche. Evidence to support this theory can be found in Williams response to a newsman after he was asked about the significance of the play? s main male character, he stated? [ A Street Car Named Desire ] means that if you do non watch out the apes will take over ( Joseph Wood Krutch, 462 ) . ? This is evidently in mention to over powering nature of Stanley? s beastly strength. With this statement Williams is stating his audience non to allow travel of all that is beloved to you and all the hopes you have for the hereafter, because the? apes? [ Stanley ] will coerce you to discard these desires. Through out this play, Williams uses many objects and actions symbolically of the greater internal struggle that lied deep with in the confines of Blanche DuBois? s psyche. Evidence of this symbolism can be found in the gap scene when Blanche shows up to meet Stella. We learn that the two sisters? plantation, called Belle Reve, has been lost due to fiscal fortunes environing it. the name Belle Reve is symbolic it that the word Belle is the feminine signifier of the adjectival beautiful in French. While the word Reve is the masculine signifier of the noun dream. It has been proposed by many bookmans that the original rubric of the plantation was Belle Rive, which means Beautiful Shore, and the corruptness of the name from Belle Rive to Belle Reve is symbolic of the false goon of it world that it has acquired by the clip it has come to Blanche? s coevals ( Felicia Hardison Londre, 89 ) Another specific illustration of symbolism can be found in the context of chapter three. In this chapter Blanche makes the statement? I can? t stand a bare visible radiation bulb, any longer than I can a unsmooth work or a vulgar action. ? She than asks Mitch to set a colored paper lantern over the sleeping room lamp. This lamp is symbolic of world and the truth behind her yesteryear. She can? t bare the fact that she is an alcoholic, a hobo, and a lonely has-been, so she conceals it and covers it up with a forepart of fancied edification and appeal, merely as she covered the lamp with a colourful paper lantern. More grounds to support the lamp as an object of symbolism can be found in scene eight of the play. This is the scene in which Mitch as merely learned the truth about Blanche? s secret yesteryear. Mitch confronts Blanch about this cognition he has of her and rips the paper lantern off of the room lamp, in an attempt to acquire a better expression at Blanche since he has neer seen her in the visible radiation of twenty-four hours. Blanche cries out for him to halt and provinces, ? I don? T want pragmatism. I want thaumaturgy! # 8230 ; I don? T Tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth ( Felicia Hardison Londre, 92 ) ? Another object of heavy symbolism in the play are the many wore drobes that Blanche possesses. While they may look exquisite, elaborate, and really expensive, they are really all made of man-made stuff and are really inexpensive in value and quality. This is symbolic of the forepart Blanche puts up for her ego, while she may look capturing, beautiful, and sophisticated, when you examine her more closely it is revealed that she is nil but a corrupt, lying, prostitute. Tennessee Williams is evidently one of the most advanced dramatists of modern theatre. Through his drama, A Streetcar Named Desire, he set the phase for realistic secret plans and characters to unite with conventional theatrical dramatics, for an overall dramatic show. Through his usage of realistic characters, whom the audience could associate with, every bit good as humanising his characters with personality strengths and defects, Tennessee Williams portrayed a realistic play that his audience can associate to. The Characters of Blanche and Stanley, are two characters that the audience could believe were existent people. I see other equals at school, which I view as holding the same personalities, every bit good as the same strengths and failings as Blanche and Stanley. You can see other existent life people through the characters in this play and this was, I feel, was done deliberately by Tennessee Williams in order to pull a closer tie between his play, and existent life. Through his play A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams has become the true pioneer of modern dramatic theatre. List of Works Cited 1. Londre, Felicia Hardison et all. Tennessee Williams. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. , 1971. 2. Corrigan, Mary Ann. ? Realism and Theatricalism in? A Streetcar Named Desire? . ? Modern Drama. 1976. Rpt. in Contemporary literary Criticism. Vol. 30. Stine, Jean C. Detroit: Gale Research Co. , 1984, 575-576. 3. Daniels Steven. ? A Tribute to Tennessee Williams. ? Nov. 1998, April 9, 1999