Streetcar Named Desire Essays (Examples)

Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play by Tennessee illiams that explores the relationships between Stella (DuBois) and Stanley Kowalski and Blanche DuBois, Stella's sister. In the play, illiams analyzes how social constructs and expectations influenced Blanche's behavior and the factors that contributed to her mental breakdown. Blanche's mental breakdown piques towards the end of the play, however, it can be argued that Blanche was psychologically damaged before she arrived at the Kowalskis and her efforts to get herself out of her social situation were deliberately thwarted by Stanley.
In the play, Blanche uses fantasy as a coping mechanism. Throughout her life, she has had to deal situations that have overwhelmed her including the multiple deaths in her family and the suicide of her first husband. Because her behavior is significantly altered after finding out her husband was homosexual and after witnessing him commit suicide, one can argue that Blanche's madness,…

But on the other hand, men lose interest quickly" (Williams 81). She believes the way to catch a man (which she believes she must do to stay alive), is to act innocent and girlish, and she is not innocent and girlish at all. This shows how tragic her character is, and how self-defeating her dreams and hopes are, because she is setting herself up for failure, and she will not admit it. From the beginning of the play, the reader knows Blanche is a lost woman, left without a home, her attraction to younger men, and the death of her husband by suicide. The reader also sees that she has problems with drinking and sexual behavior. Overall, she is nothing but an empty human in society; she belongs nowhere, not even with her sister. She continually makes the same mistakes in her life, and these eventually lead to her…

Streetcar Named Desire
Blanche is a person of imaginative and false illusions, whereas Stanley is a creature of bestial reality. Although the binary holds firm throughout A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche and Stanley are multifaceted and complex characters that preclude oversimplification. For example, Blanche's imaginative and false illusions are exacerbated and enhanced by her devotion to the drink. Her compulsive and excessive drinking prove to be expressions or symptoms of her imaginative and false illusions. Drinking also causes Blanche DuBois to intensify any imaginative or false illusions she might have had already. Because Blanche was once young and attractive, she still sees herself in that light. It is as if she has a false mirror before her like the stepmother in "Snow hite." Blanche harbors false self-images, because those illusory self-concepts are more pleasant and comforting than the reality. Blanche can trick herself into believing her false illusions because she has…

Streetcar Named Desire and the Snows of Kilimanjaro
The epigraph of Tennessee Williams' classic play A Streetcar Named Desire contains a quote from Hart Crane's poem The Broken Tower: "And so it was I entered the broken world / To trace the visionary company of love, its voice/An instant in the wind (I know not whither hurled)/But not for long to hold each desperate choice" (1947). Ernest Hemingway also elected to preface his timeless short story The Snows of Kilmanjaro with an epigraph, but rather than quote the elegiac poetry of his predecessors, the quintessential American author provides his own cryptic musings on the tallest peak in Africa, before concluding "close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude" (1938). Although writing from uniquely different perspectives, Williams and Hemingway both employed the…

Streetcar Named Desire Long Days Journey Night ( Scenes Acts Correspondigly- Introduction-role Stage Directions-themes-character Development-setting-structure -- Dramatic
A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Long Day's Journey Into Night"

Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" and Eugene O'Neil's "Long Day's Journey Into Night" both deal with the physical and mental difficulties that people encounter partly as a result of being unwilling to accept their condition and partly because of the set of problems that they come across. Williams focuses on the character of Blanche Dubois as she vainly struggles to ignore her troubled past in order to create a dreamlike future while O'Neil deals with the Tyrone family as it is severely affected by the fact that each of its members has proved to be a failure. Although the Tyrones appear to be heading toward the same route as Blanche, they seem to be stronger and better prepared to accept their problems, even…

Forrest Gump and Streetcar
Comparing and Contrasting Feminine Constructs in a Streetcar Named Desire and Forrest Gump

In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche Dubois -- the self-deluded Southern Belle -- leaves her home (and her world) for the primal, modern world of the Kowalskis. In doing so, she travels via the Desire, which serves as both the name of the streetcar in New Orleans and as an ironic symbol of that which she does not possess: fulfillment. Blanche is an unsatisfied woman, in part because she refuses to see herself for what she is -- a semi-depraved human no different from Stanley, desperately in need of saving (or as she herself puts it: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers") (illiams 123). In Forrest Gump, the title character is also traveling from one world to another via public transportation. The film is told in flashback sequences while Forrest sits at…

Everyman: Faustus and Blanche
The concept of "Everyman" derives from the 15-century morality play "The Summoning of Everyman." The play was meant as a guide towards salvation and how a person might attain it. The name "Everyman" was meant to represent an everyday, ordinary person of the time, implying that Christian salvation was obtainable by any person. Today, the idea of "everyman" is used to indicate any ordinary person with ordinary characteristics that might represent the majority of the world's citizens. When considering the characteristics of "everyman" in literature, plays, and films, one might therefore surmise that this is, ideally, a character that the majority of his or her intended audience would be able to relate to. In film, for example, a young single mother who attempts to balance her relationship with her children with other responsibilities such as work and romantic relationships would be relatively typical of Western society today,…

Street car named desire
"A Streetcar Named Desire" is an American play written by Tennessee illiams, written in 1947. This paper will highlight the relationship between love and desire as highlighted in the paper. There are four important characters in the play and these include Blanche, Stanley, Mitch, and Stella. Love and desire will be highlighted in the light of these four characters.

Blanche

Blanche is the elder sister of Stella. The loaners have confiscated all her riches and property and she has been left with nothing to live. In spite of losing all her money and family riches, Blanche still lives under an illusion of being rich and authoritative. This illusion lets her attract and lie to men. A woman of thirty living under the illusions of being pretty and still attractive, she desires more men to be attracted to her. One of the main reasons based on which Blanche keeps…

Blanche recognized that Stanley did not share their "values" and attempted to get her sister to see him for who he really was.
Conclusion

The purpose of this discussion was to explore the issues of character, themes and values presented in a Street Car Named Desire and the manner in which Tennessee illiams infused these ideas into this classic play.

The research reveals that Character presented through the play varied from vain to cruel. Blanche had character traits that were superficial while her sister was loyal and extremely tolerant of others. Stanley was a bully who abused his wife and raped his sister-in-law. The discussion also revealed several themes present throughout the play including sex, fantasy and women dependent upon men. The discussion found that sex was one of the more dominant themes of the play from beginning to end. Finally the discussion explored values and found a tug of war between…

Street Car Named Desire
The play a Street Car Named Desire is about the relationship between: lanche, Stella and Stanley. lanche is a southern belle, who is visiting her sister (Stella) and brother in law (Stanley) in New Orleans. Throughout the play, there is a conflict between lanche and Stanley. This is because Stanley believes that lanche is interfering in his relationship between Stella and himself. As he is emotionally and physically abusive, yet they are also dependent upon each other for support. The problem is that her presence is creating a situation which is highlighting the strains in this relationship. ("Street Car Named Desire")

However, Stanley finds out that lanche was former teacher (from Laurel, Mississippi). The reason why she left is because: her husband was a homosexual; she had an affair with a 17-year-old student and was run out of Laurel. This is because he wants to get back at…

The fulfillment of desire, that is, means the eradication of desire -- by its very definition, desire is gone once its object has been attained. This plays out differently for the two characters described above; Gatsby does briefly attain his desire -- i.e. Daisy -- but also learns that, through her own decision, he will never really possess her. This dual event of fulfillment and permanent rejection is symbolically paired with his death, and the complete randomness yet strange inevitability of the death as far as the storyline of the novel goes makes it all the more tragic. Blanche never really attains her desire, and in fact can be seen as destroying it utterly when Mitch leaves her, and this final rejection is enough to break her. Unable to attain her desires, Blanche suffers a complete break from reality that effectively destroys her, as well, yet she continues living in…

Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche Dubois goes to seek refuge at her sister's house. At first it seems decent enough- even though she has to bear with Stella's less than gentleman husband, Stanley Kowalski, she starts to disintegrate into madness when her once value beauty cannot get her the freedom and independence she craves. As some would say, beauty gets you far, for Blanche, nearing the age of 30, without hardly any money and losing her home and position as a high school teacher, her aging face is a far cry from her once flawless form. She was considered the "bell of the ball." She had money, she had worth suitors, and she had a good family name. Of course none of that mattered as her attempts to gain independence from her newly found poverty through being with men ended in a psychotic break that ruined any future chances of…

Shakespeare's play, Romeo Juliet, film version: note defend effective ineffective. Do unknown young actors, Leonard hiting Olivia Hussey, opposed recognizable stars, made film appealing? Please explain
Although some might be inclined to believe that it is impossible to compare two works of art because they should each be analyzed from different points-of-view, it is only safe to consider that illiam Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet needs to be compared with the film that was inspired from it. One of the first things that the director needed to take into account was that the play that he wanted to screen contained a particularly powerful storyline and the actors thus needed to be prepared to express its full intensity. Franco Zeffirelli decided to cut some of the play's major parts and in spite of the fact that he created a less dramatic piece he managed to create a motion picture that was successful…

The director makes this point very clearly in the scene where David and Dianna win some money.
They tumble among the bills, consummating their love for money as much as, or more so than, their love for each other. The scene is quite remarkable even beyond the basic idea of sex literally on top of money. Lyne spends significant amounts of time exploring the cash-filled crevices of his stars. While certainly a cinematic first, this union of love and money is a hollow pleasure.

The above quote also emphasizes the attitude projected by the film, which is a reflection of the contemporary world, where money and sex and power are closely associated. In a sense the film also points to another problematic aspect of the modern world; that the value of money is regarded above all else - including love and human relationships. The entire film is built around an exploration…

Good Man is Hard to Find
Flannery O'Conner's short story, a Good Man is Hard to Find is a modern parable. The story is laced with symbolism and religious subtext. In many ways the piece is similar to classical Greek plays about pride and retribution.

efore launching into a discussion of O'Conner's story it is important to understand the woman and her motivations to write. O'Conner was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1925 to her devout Catholic parents, Edward and Regina O'Conner. Flannery spent her youth attending Catholic parochial schools. In 1938, the family moved to a town just outside Atlanta called Milledgeville where Flannery continued her education. Unfortunately, her father would ultimately die in this town as the result of complications from the disease lupus. Flannery went on to Georgia State College for Women and then proceeded to the State University of Iowa where she received her MFA in 1947.

It…

Origins and Characteristics of the Law and Legal Systems in the U.S.
The Origins and Characteristics of the Law

and Legal Systems in the United States

The origins and characteristics of the law and legal systems of the United States

It is a commonplace observation to state that the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the U.S. are the origin of and provide the characteristics of the legal systems of the U.S. But in order to truly understand the ideas behind these landmark legal documents one must delve deeper into history. What of the texts that influenced America's Founding Fathers? Most may know that the Magna Charta, the English charter from the year 1215, was an influence. But the English weren't the only influential opinion-makers for revolutionary Americans. The Scottish and the French were too. The Scottish Declaration of Arbroath, for example, has been linked by scholars as an influence on Thomas Jefferson,…

Scorsese equates him with "a magician enchanted by his own magic." This freedom allowed Welles to create from narrative techniques and filmic devices a masterpiece that is self-aware of its own form. It intends to communicate this self-consciousness to the audience, thus contradicting the classical canons of filmmaking whereby the camera ought not to be noticed and the shots should be seamless. In other words, Welles expanded the art form of cinema, using the camera the way a poet uses a pen. He even created fake news footage in unique ways to enhance the film's appearance. His immense influence can be seen more on the art form as later with Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Censorship was still rife in Hollywood. The league of decency suppressed adult themes. Elia Kazan's adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) was censored. What we would see now as almost innocent -- a…

movie industry in America has been controlled by some of the monolithic companies which not only provided a place for making the movies, but also made the movies themselves and then distributed it throughout the entire country. These are movie companies and their entire image revolved around the number of participants of their films. People who wanted to see the movies being made had to go to the studios in order to see them. They made movies in a profitable manner for the sake of the studios, but placed the entire industry under their control and dominated over it. The discussion here is about some of those famous studios inclusive of that of names like Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Culver, RKO, Paramount Studios, Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, Universal Studios, Raleigh Studio, Hollywood Center Studio, Sunset Gower Studio, Ren-Mar Studios, Charlie Chaplin Studios and now, Manhattan Beach…

Cinema 1950s
1950s was a decade of change for the U.S. - cinema was no exception, as it modeled itself to accommodate the social changes U.S. society was going through. Films not only provide entertainment to masses but are also believed to express the general outlook of society by the way it sets and adopts trends. 50s was marked by postwar prosperity, rising consumerism, loosening up of stereotype families, baby boom and growing middle-class. It was the time of reaction to the aging cinema, especially by the freedom loving youth who were keyed up with fast food (Mc Donald's franchised in '54), credit card (first in 1950) and drive-in theaters (Filmsite.org). Young people were fed-up with the conventional illustration of men and women. With growing interest in ock-n-oll and break-free attitude prevailing, a social revolution was very much in the offering, and that was to transfer the cinema as well -…

For instance, renowned designer Barbara Matera explained that when Glenn Close first tried on the Norma Desmond costume described above, she "winced under its weight" (New York's Top Costume Shop Reveals Its Secrets 1996:3). The costume's designer, Anthony Powell, instructed Close to turn around and face the mirror, and "upon seeing the stunning result her whole attitude changed" (4). Other anecdotal accounts on the design process from Matera included: "e love shows that have underwear scenes" (referring to bustles, corsets, and pantaloons), and "bird costumes can be very taxing"; these comments provide some insight into the creative challenges that face costume designers and makers today.
Each character that appears in a production must be individually assessed, and gradually each movement of each character and each costume must then be integrated into a cohesive whole that presents the imagery desired. "At any rate," Cole et al. say, "slowly, harmoniously, must the…

Nan Goldin: Punk Expressions
Nan Goldin captures a raw, energetic visual spirit in her photography -- images of individuals outside the mainstream, persons who live in the sub-culture of the modern day world. These people are transsexuals or drug addicts, some of whom are involved in the punk music scene, others of whom are part of the underground by virtue of their "third gender" status, which Goldin applies to them. She does not photograph them as one who is reviled but rather as one who admires them and wants to be around them. Thus, her aesthetic judgments of her subjects are never scathing or attacking: rather, she presents them as they are -- boldly, objectively, almost defiantly, with their poses, attitudes, facial expressions (the eyes staring directly into the camera and hence into the viewer's saying, "Take me as I am" as in Misty and Jimmy Paulette in a Taxi, NYC,…

Anthony Quinn was often thought of as being larger than life. He was a talented actor who played many diverse roles and is now a Hollywood legend.
Anthony Quinn was born Anthony Rudloph Oaxaca Quinn on April 12, 1915 in Chihuahua, Mexico of a Mexican-Indian mother and an Irish father. When he was four years old, his family moved to California, where he was raised in poverty in East Los Angeles and shined shoes and sold newspapers.

Before he launched his acting career, Quinn worked at a variety of odd jobs including a boxer, butcher, street corner preacher and a worker in a slaughterhouse. At one point, he had even been a painter before trying his hand at acting. He launched his film career playing small character roles in several movies in 1936, including his debut in a movie called Parole. He also had small parts in worn Enemy and Night Waitress…

pervasive philosophies behind many postmodern forms of art and literature is the idea that human identities are defined more by their social circumstances than by any universal truths. The human is not a self-sufficient entity, but is built through social conventions. This notion reveals itself in the transitional postmodern works by Samuel Beckett and Vladimir Nabokov -- specifically, in Lolita and aiting for Godot. Humbert is continually attempting to reconcile his life as a suave intellectual with his hidden life as a pedophilic rapist. One way in which he does this is to call himself a "therapist"; which is an acceptable label for one of his faces, but also identifies him more subtly as "the rapist." This duel nature reflects the social limitations imposed upon his freedom, and the consequences they have for both his identity and his actions. Vladimir and Estragon encounter a different aspect of this philosophy:…

Good Man is Hard to Find
For the purposes of this essay, I chose Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find." "A Good Man is Had to Find" is an apt topic for research such as this, because the ambiguity of the story's position regarding a grandmother ultimately responsible for the death of her entire family leads to a wide variety of possible readings, each with its own adherents and defenders. Upon reading this story, I immediately questioned the grandmother's role in the story, and especially whether or not the story portrayed her in a positive or negative light, because although at points in the story she appears positive in contrast to the other characters, she is ultimately shown to be reactive, shortsighted, and altogether incapable of protecting either her family or herself. Using Google Scholar, I searched for academic essays and books discussing "A Good…

limiting free speech ID: 53711
The arguments most often used for limiting freedom of speech include national security, protecting the public from disrupting influences at home, and protecting the public against such things as pornography.

Of the three most often given reasons for limiting freedom of speech, national security may well be the most used. President after president, regardless of party has used national security as a reason to not answer questions that might be embarrassing personally or would show their administration as behaving in ways that would upset the populace. Although there are many examples of government apply the "national security" label to various situations, perhaps some of the stories that are associated with the Iran-Contra issue best display what government uses limitations on free speech for. In horrific tangle of lies double and triple dealing that resulted in the deaths of many Nicaraguans, the egan administration sought to overthrow…

Media eview Project
The 1993 film "What's Love Got To Do With It" presents many of the classic symptoms and effects of domestic violence. As such, it provides a great deal of insight into this phenomenon, both on the part of the abuser and on the one who is receiving the abuse. The film is a musical biography of Tina Turner, who was one of the late 20th century's most popular singers. The movie opens up with Tin Turner as a young girl singing in a church choir. Even at this early age her prowess as a singer, the power of her voice and the zeal she expresses through her musical performance, become readily apparent. It is crucial to note that despite such an enthusiastic performance, Tina Turner (who is going by her true name at this point, Anna Mae Bullock), is enduring a tumultuous home life. Her mother eventually abandons…

America's sprawling territories makes it easy for people to leave their families and connections, making it easier to kill or be killed. On one hand, the inventions of the Fair and the belief in commercialism and industry makes spectacle possible in a way that is not easily replicated anywhere else, Eiffel Tower aside. More so than anywhere else, the belief in newness and self-creation seems to be a kind of religion in America. Chicago would recreate itself, and so would Holmes. Science would set America free, leaving older primitive cultures to curiosity cabinets and freak shows, and science would give Holmes the tools to create the perfect murders, and then to profit by selling the remains, letting nothing go to waste in this little 'business' he was running. For both Holmes and Chicago, eradication of the 'dark city' beneath the image of a white facade was the essence of…

location will lend knowledge to the present and the future. s a citizen of any region understanding the how and why of historical reflections upon the landscape of a city or town is crucial for a holistic view of the culture, economy and even of that town landscape. Without this knowledge decisions made by an individual can seem to lack in depth and purpose. The history of California, it's place within the union of the United States and also it's pre-union history is not only fascinating but it is also poignant when used to reflect upon current circumstances, be they positive or perceptually negative.
One city's history lends particular interest to this theory in all aspects of culture, economy, and landscape. The city of Downey California has a substantial pre-1900 history and is also home to three firsts, which have become international symbols of merican culture and ingenuity. "We are…

Of note, Out of the Past was released in Europe and Great Britain as Build My Gallows High. It seems that both films could have been subtitled with this alternative note, particularly when we focus upon the editing -- each piece is but a plank in the construction of the gallows and when the camera has had enough of these nefarious people they are then cast aside as they do others (Homes).

Editing Example 2 -- Geometric vs. Sound-Based Editing- Geometric editing is essentially a technique that uses the positions of the camera, one following each other, when put together, form a geometric shape or picture of the action. For example, the interaction of close ups (when the policemen are talking, for instance) with long shots, of traffic and the city, in The Line Up. In addition, the geometry of the editing moved from box to box, almost in a lineup…