“A streetcar named desire is a play written by Tennessee Williams “in 1947. Blanche Dubois is the central character who comes to New Orleans to live off her sister’s kindness after losing their family home because of her difficult past.
Tennessee Williams develops the theme ‘desire’ with the help of characterization through Blanche, symbolism and other stylistic devices which foreshadow her fate. Desire is one of the most prominent themes in this play. Each character is deeply affected by desire.Stanley and Stella’s relationship is built on it and Blanche’s inability to control her desire leads to her eventual downfall. Blanche is an aging southern belle who fear is losing her beauty. She believe by constantly seducing men younger to her she would be avoiding death and return to the world of teenage bliss when she was married before her husband’s suicide.
In scene one Williams suggest that Blanche’s sexual history cause her downfall. Blanche arrived at her sister’s house by taking the streetcar named ‘desire’ to a place called Elysian Fields.This metaphorical journey is symbolic in foreshadowing her own fate which is self destruction. Elysian Fields is the land of the dead . Blanche’s long pursuit of satisfying her sexual desires leads to the loss of Belle Reve and her expulsion from society in general. Blanche believes that sex is her escape from death and she has gotten herself into a vicious cycle, something dies she turns to sex and something dies again and so on and on throughout the play, Blanche is haunted by the deaths of her ancestors, which she attributes to their “epic fornications.
”Her husband’s suicide results from her disapproval of his homosexuality. Tennessee Williams message is that indulging in ones desires leaves to forced departures. “Death […], death was as close as you are. […] The opposite is desire” this quote in scene 9 foreshadows blanches fate.
Williams develops desire mainly through blanches character. Blanches main desire other than the sexual one are stability and protection. With this in mind she seduces Mitch as she know her beauty is fading and she need to settle down and also she’s trying to escape her dark past where she turned to prostitution to survive.Blanche’s desire is shattered one Stanley’s learns about her past and feeds Mitch with information breaking his heart and destroying Blanche’s desire to gain stability and escape the demons of her past. Desire is also prominent through Stanley and Stella’s relationship. Stanley sees his sexual relationship with his wife to be one of the most important aspects of their marriage.
Although Stella and Stanley fight, their physical relationship is the way that they make up and forgive each other.Stella herself realizes that their sex life helps them smooth out their marriage; she says to Blanche, “there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark – that sort of make everything else seem – unimportant”. Their relation ship is based on the mutual desire for each other and since blanche move into the apartment with them she disturbs the peace and Stanley’s and Stella’s sexual desire for each other is disrupted We know that sex is important to Stanley in his marriage, but even outside of his marriage, he basically relates to seemingly all women on a sexual level.Williams gives us some good descriptions of Stanley in his stage directions. For example, “since earliest manhood the center of [Stanley's] life has been pleasure with women.
” and “He sizes women up at a glance, with sexual classifications, crude images flashing into his mind and determining the way he smiles at them. ” His desire for dominance and power along with his sexual desires leads to the rape off Blanche.In conclusion Desire is Blanche’s first step, just as it was the first step of her life after her husband Allan had died. Still struggling with this loss, she was desperately longing for love and companionship, but ended up leading a life which was filled with sex with random men, who never cared about her: “Yes, I had many intimacies with strangers. After the death of Allan – intimacies with strangers was all I seemed able to fill my empty heart with…” at this point Blanche is consumed by desire.
