Named DesireHarsh Issues in A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, is a play which deals
with many harsh issues like spousal abuse, rape, and insanity. The play
is mainly about Blanche and her sister Stella. Blanche arrives at her
sisterOs house after being fired from the school where she taught and
after loosing the big family house. She says she is on a leave of
absence, but Stella and her husband, Stanley, soon find out the truth.
Throughout the play Blanche acts as someone she isnOt, in order to hide
her past and hope that someone will desire her.
Her escape is futile for
her past is uncovered, and her last chance to meet a man is
destroyed.The main theme of this play is the uselessness of escape.
Blanche arrives at her sistersO house acting like someone she isnOt. Her
dirty past, and her motives for puting on this act are quickly
discovered and Blanche ends up in a nut house.
When Blanche arrives at her sistersO home she says that she has come to
stay with them temporarily because she has lost the family estate (she
could no longer support it financially). Blanche has an air of
superiority, indirectly commenting on where her sister lives and acting
as if she has more class. When Stanley meets Blanche he is quickly
suspicious of how she obtained all of her clothes, furs and jewelry. In
the third scene Stanley is drunk after a poker night and hits his wife.
They reconciliate the same night and Blanche puts on an act of how
terrified she is, even after being reassured by two people the event
wasnOt a big deal.
In scene four Blanche tells her sister about one of
her rich friends that could send her some money and get her out of her
bind. This is a lie, later on Stanley finds out that this man is not
rich, and just an old aquantance of Blanche. Later on Blanche has a
converstaion with Stella, which Stanley over hears, where she speaks of
Stanley calling him primitive and saying he has animal like behaviors.
This turns Stanley against Stella, even though he says nothing to her
face. Blanche meets Mitch one of StanleysO friends, and one day she
explains to her sister that she wants to decieve Mitch so that he wants
her.
Blanche feels that if she can get together with Mitch, she could
move out, forget her past, and salvage her life. Mitch and Blanche go
out a few times and one night Mitch says to Blanche, OOYou need
somebody. And I need somebody, too. Could it be-you and me, Blanche ?OO
At this point things are going great for Blanche, she has managed to
deceive everyone.
In scene seven Stanley tells his wife that he has
found out the truth about Blanche. Stanley has also told Mitch about
BlancheOs past. Blanche apparantly wasnOt the girl Mitch thought she
was. She had apparently dated many of the men of Laurel, where she
lived, Blanche he had appeared as if she was rarely with men. The only
man Blanche had told Mitch about was her first love, a boy of sixteen
that committed suicide.
Blanche was also kicked out of the school where
she teached for getting involved with one of her students, she said she
was on a leave of absence. Because of this news Mitch does not attend
BlancheOs birthday. Mitch realizes that Blanche had always tried to
deceive him, always taking him out at night, being in BlancheOs sistersO
room where Blanch had put paper around the light bulbs. During the
night of Stellas giving birth Stanley learns that all of BlancheOs
clothes, and jewels are fakes, or are not what they seem to be. Stanley
is drunk and he rapes Blanche.
Stanley and Blanche tell Stella different
stories of what had happened that evening, and Stella beleives her
husband. Blanches many lies have caught up with her, and when she
finally says something true she is not beleived. Stella is eventually
sent to a nut house by her sister.
BlancheOs escape of her problems, and inventions are seen from the
start of the novel. She is lavishly dressed, acts superior to everyone,
and innocent. Blanche pretends she is on a leave of absence, and that
one of her rich friends will come and swap her away.
In reality Blanche
is a fake, asw are all of her clothes and jewels. She is escaping a bad
reputation in Laurel, where no one wants anything to do with her. She
has gottten involved with one of her students and for that has been
fired. Therefore she has lost the family estate, but still blames her
sister for not being there with her, after most of their family passed
away. Blanche is escaping the truth. BlancheOs denials of the truth and
her pretense of being someone she is not cost her the only chance she
had to be happy.
