A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams | Characters, Summary, Analysis

 A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. A Streetcar Named Desire is the most successful and talked about playwright by Tennessee Williams that was first performed on 3rd December 1947. The play depicts the continual confrontations between Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski. DuBois is a former Southern Belle who, after encountering a series of personal losses, leaves her once-prosperous situation to move into a shabby apartment in New Orleans where her sister lives with her husband Stanley Kowalski. Initially, the confrontation is not so severe, but it increases in severity until one of the two must be destroyed. This confrontation arises because of the completely different characters and thinking of DuBois and Kowalski. Blanche is an educated sophisticated girl who belonged to a rich heritage but has lost her prosperity. Kowalski, on the other hand, isn’t highly educated and belongs to the middle class. For Stanley money is the most important thing while DuBois doesn’t consider money that important. She searches for values, reflecting education in her manner of speaking. Her idea of entertainment is calm tea and cocktail parties while Stanley loves loud poker parties. He regards money as the key to happiness; money will buy anything. Money, for him, is a power that can buy some basic wants or pleasures of life. This gives him a type of animal superiority to the world of people (like the DuBois) who do not understand the value of money and then become destitute.

Characters:

Blanche DuBois is a former Southern Belle who belonged to a rich family. She was married to a man who turned out to be homosexual. She saw her prosperous family losing all the money. These bad experiences along with her husband’s suicide impact her emotions and her sense of reality. Desire and death became intricately linked in her life as she led a loose and increasingly careless life, and indeed, after losing her position as a schoolteacher she is forced to depend on the kindness of her one living relation, her sister Stella. She tries to relive her former Southern Belle life but she is no more a young girl nor she has money. Stella Kowalski is the younger sister of Blanche. She is married to Stanley Kowalski and she is pregnant with his child. Stella is madly in love with her husband Stanley who considers her as the means for his need for physical love. Stella is forthright and unapologetic about the nature of her relationship with her husband, and although she loves her sister, she is pragmatic and refuses to let anything come between her and Stanley. Stanley Kowalski is Stella’s husband. He belongs to a middle-class background and believes in the power of money. He is direct, passionate, and often violent. He has no patience for Blanche and the illusions she cherishes. Moreover, he is a controlling and domineering man, demanding subservience from his wife in the belief that his authority is threatened by Blanche's arrival. Harold Mitchell or “Mitch” is one of Stanley’s friends. He is as tough and raw as Stanley. He is a strongly built but deeply sensitive and compassionate man. He is attracted to Blanche from the start and wishes to marry her. However, when he is fed with rumors about Blanche’s past, he feels like being swindled by her and creates a distance.

Eunice Hubbell is the owner of the apartment where Stella and Stanley live. She is helpful and considerate of Stella and Blanche. She has a personal understanding of the Kowalskis' relationship because it mirrors her own. In the end, she advises Stella that despite Blanche's tragedy, life must go on. Steve Hubbell is the husband of Eunice, he is as cold and animalistic as Stanley is.

Summary:

The play is set in 1945, right after the end of World War II. The play begins at a rented apartment which is in a poor but charming neighborhood in the French Quarter. Stella, twenty-five years old and pregnant, lives with her blue-collar husband Stanley Kowalski. Blanche DuBois arrives to visit her sister and she is shocked by the disreputable looks of the place. While a neighbor goes to find Stella, Blanche looks around the apartment for a drink. When her sister comes, Blanche quite frankly criticizes the place. She explains that she has come for a visit because her nerves are shattered from teaching. Noticing that the apartment has only two rooms, she has qualms about staying but she tells Stella that she can't stand being alone. She informs Stella that their old ancestral home, Belle Reve, has been lost. Stanley arrives at the same time and Blanche meets Stella’s husband for the first time. He questions Blanche about her past, especially about her earlier marriage and she feels uncomfortable. We learn that Blanche was once married when she was very young, but her husband died, leaving her widowed and alone.

Stanley initially distrusts Blanche and believes that she has cheated Stella out of her share of Belle Reve. He enquires further and Blanche offers him all the legal papers and documents to put her case. Stanley soon realizes that Blanche is not the swindling type. But the animosity between the two continues. Blanche takes long baths, criticizes the squalor of the apartment, and irritates Stanley. Blanche too feels the same for Stanley. One day, Stanley arranges for a poker party at his apartment and during the party, he acts rude to Stella and beats her. Blanche takes her to their upstairs neighbors' apartment, but soon Stella returns to Stanley. Blanche is unable to understand Stella and Stanley's powerful and destructive physical relationship. That night, she also meets Mitch, prompting an immediate mutual attraction.

The next day, Blanche goes to Stella and tries to make her see that Stanley is an animal. She is shocked that Stella could have returned to him. But Stella assures her that Stanley was gentle when she returned and that she loves him. As Blanche begins describing Stanley, he comes in and overhears the conversation but doesn't say a thing. But from that time on, he devotes himself fully to her destruction. Blanche, herself, has a shady past that she keeps close to the vest. During the last days of Belle Reve, after the mansion was lost, she was exceptionally lonely and turned to strangers for comfort. Her numerous amorous encounters destroyed her reputation in Laurel, leading to the loss of her job as a high school English teacher and her near-expulsion from town.

Tensions continue to grow between Blanche and Stanley. Blanche starts drwoning herself in alcoholism. Meanwhile, Stanley enquires more about her past and comes to know about her sexual dalliances with strangers. He realizes that Blanche is trying to make a relationship with Mitch and he decides to ruin their relationship by telling Mitch about her past. While Blanche and Mitch had been on track to marry, after he learns the truth, he loses all interest in her. On Blanche's birthday, Mitch stands her up, abandoning her for good. Stanley, meanwhile, caustically presents Blanche with her birthday gift: bus tickets back to Laurel. Blanche is overcome by sickness; she cannot return to Laurel, and Stanley knows it. As Blanche is ill in the bathroom, Stella fights with Stanley over the cruelty of his act. Mid-fight, she tells him to take her to the hospital - the baby is coming.
That night, Blanche packs and drinks. Mitch arrives unexpectedly. He confronts her with the stories of her past, and she tells him, in lurid detail, the truth about her escapades in Laurel. He approaches her, making advances, wanting what she has denied him all summer. She asks him to marry her, and when he refuses, she kicks him out of the apartment.

Hours later, Stanley comes home to get some sleep while Stella's labor continues. Blanche further antagonizes Stanley, destroying his good humor, and he responds by mercilessly destroying Blanche's illusions, one by one, until finally, he rapes her.

Weeks later, another poker game is being held at the Kowalski apartment. Blanche has suffered a mental breakdown. She has told Stella about Stanley's assault, but Stella has convinced herself that it cannot be true. Stella calls for a doctor and an attendant to take Blanche to an institution. When the attendant arrives, she doesn't recognize him and tries to run away. Stanley and an assistant trap Blanche. The doctor approaches and Blanche is quite willing to go with him, as she says she has always depended on the kindness of strangers.

The other men continue their poker game as if nothing has happened.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards.