...A Street Car Named Desire Tennessee Williams suggests that Blanche represents the faded American past in a few different ways. One way is her difficulty fitting in with life in New Orleans. New Orleans is a modern urbanized city unlike Laurel, which is a small rural town where Blanche comes from. Blanche's life is crumbling just like the old south is crumbling. Blanche and Stanley were in two completely separate and different worlds, which caused major conflicts between the two. The biggest conflict is between illusion and realism. Blanche lives her life avoiding the truth and trying to erase her past. She lives for how things should to be, not for how they are. She prefers magic and shadows to facing facts in bright light as she says "I don’t want realism. I want magic". A lot of the things she does are to make her feel pure which she is not. She blames herself for the death of her husband and therefore constantly bathes to cleanse herself of her past. Blanche also doesn't accept the fact that she is getting older. She stays away from lights because "electric light bulbs go on and you see too plainly" and she does not want people, in this case Mitch, to see what she actually looks like. Stanley looks at the world as it is and not what he wants it to be. He doesn't buy into all of the things that Blanche says. When Blanche said that she lost Belle Reve, Stanley didn't trust her because she didn't have any proof. We see he didn't trust her when he said "In the state of...
Words: 537 - Pages: 3
...Tennessee Williams shows how lying can be destructive, and take over someone's life. Lying takes over Blanche’s life throughout “A Street Car Named Desire” lying allows Blanche to escape the reality of her life when she tells lies to other people, because she starts to let herself believe her own lies. Blanche escapes reality because she is not proud of her past, and wants to be something else but herself. Blanche tries to hide who she is to her friends, and even her family. When Blanche just meets someone, it’s easier to feed them lies about who she is because they don’t know anything about her so it’s easier to believe. It’s more of a struggle to tell her own family lies because they question her because they know her past. Blanche let’s lying destructs her life slowly, by ruining each relationship with someone important to her. Blanche lives in a fantasy world to hide from her reality. Lying can be destructive because people let it overtake their life, and the truth always ends up coming out because people end up forget their lies. In “A Street Car Named Desire” Blanche starts lying to her sister, and she knows she’s lying. Blanche says to Stella in Scene One that she’s taking a “leave of absence” from her job as a schoolteacher. The truth on that situation is that Blanche got fired from her job as a school teacher, and got asked to leave. Later on Blanche lies about her age to Mitch telling him that she is younger than her twenty-five year old sister to Mitch...
Words: 1212 - Pages: 5
...Growing up through the 2000’s and the age of technological boom has been fast paced too say the least. The world has become a very small place thanks to social media magnate such as Facebook and Twitter. Today everyone wants the newest and best thing, which is very hard to do since fads and trends are rising and dying daily. America is known for its go go go way of life, were everyone lives by the clock and never takes a minute to stop and enjoy the simple pleasures of life. Tennessee Williams’s “A Street Car Named Desire” tells a story of an outsiders emersion to the New Orleans culture and how she struggles to understand the “slow, lazy, sleepy, sweaty, hot, wet, lazy, and exotic”- Mark Childress, city that it is is. From the first set of stage directions the atmosphere is laid out for the city, “This “blue piano” expresses the spirit of life which goes on here” Through out the entire play we see that whenever a conflict rises the blue pianos tune becomes distinctive. From what we have learned in your class so far about New Orleans is that music is a very large part of their culture, especially blues and jazz. Mr. Williams illustrates not only the looks of the city but also the smells. He describes the faint redolence of bananas and coffee, and how you can feel the warmth of breath from the brown river, representing the Mississippi. The vibe given off by the city seems to very laid back and soothing. Relationships between blacks and whites during the 1940’s was not healthy...
Words: 677 - Pages: 3
...A street The character of Blanche Dubois in the story of A Streetcar Named Desire is considered a tragic protagonist for the various conflicts she is suffering both internally and externally. It is mainly her self-delusion that ultimately leads to her destruction and the reason she is committed to an insane asylum. From the very beginning of the play we can tell that Blanche is being standoffish and not revealing everything. For instance, Blanche tells her sister in scene one that she’s simply taking a leave of absence from her job as a schoolteacher. In reality Blanche has been fired from her position and was basically run out of the town she is from because of her scandalous behavior. Blanche has been lying to so many people for so long, she can no longer can see the delineation between fantasy and reality. Blanche’s husband’s death at his own hands causes her a great deal of anxiety and guilt. We realize she is most haunted by that scene of her husband’s suicide, and that the memory is present by the sound of the polka music and then the sound of a gunshot. The death of all her older relatives and the loss of the family mansion Belle Reve contribute further to her mental instability. The struggle between Blanche and her brother in law Stanley Kowalski are a major focal point of A Streetcar Named Desire; almost immediately after meeting Blanche, Stanly has formed an opinion of her and doesn’t hold back from letting it be known how he feels about her. Stanley is a workingman...
Words: 961 - Pages: 4
...Name Tutor Course Date Blanche De Bois versus Willy Loman Blanche Du Boise is a character in Tennesse‘s fictional plain by the title a street car named desire while Willy Loman is a fictional character in Arthurs miller play; death of a sales man. Blanche in the play street car named desire is an extremely complicated character who appears to have internal conflicts throughout the play. She appears to be from the upper class society as her name suggests and upon meeting her she appears cultured and sophisticated. Her dressing suggests purity and innocence but it doesn’t take long to realize she is pretending. Her attempt to cover up her drinking problem and promiscuous behavior all foreshadow her eventual destruction of her character. On the other hand Willy Loman is presented as a very simple man as the writer wants him to appear as a common man. His family background is not well known to him as we see he only has one memory of his father; when he was a toddler and was listening to him play the flute. His brother left him when he was three and only visited twice, while his mother died a long time ago. Blanche is a pretender.wen we meet her at the start of the story, she is dressed in white, a symbol of purity and d innocence. She is seen as a delicate, refined, and sensitive. She is cultured and intelligent. One when she found her young husband in a compromising situation with an elderly woman and later they went for a dance she tells him that he is disgusting. This leads...
Words: 906 - Pages: 4
...that lie beneath; in both literature and the ocean, if one remembers to dive down a whole new world may be revealed. When reading through a book or play, many people do not delve beyond the surface, focusing only on prominent characteristics and dominant traits throughout the book. However, it is possible to find the deception behind each personality within a book if one analyzes the character's beyond their superficial facade. Since the beginning of time, humans have always stumbled on a boarder between appearance and reality, using deception to mask weaknesses and obscure the harsh eye of society. By examining A Street Car Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, and The Unabridged Journals Of Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath the deception humans use in order to appear stronger in society are revealed. In the play, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, there is a dominant theme of deception portrayed by the three main characters in the play. Stella Kowalski, Stanley Kowalski, and Blanche DuBois all have simple personalities that are extremely skewed by the end of the book. Stella states "I'm not in anything I want to get out of," (Williams, 74). This gives Blanche a huge reality check, because someone she adores has accepted such an average life, and has given up in her pursue for perfection, even if most of it is imaginary. This deception also plays a huge role in Much Ado About Nothing by Shakespeare, through a continuos series of twists...
Words: 1010 - Pages: 5
...A Streetcar Named Desire Author of A Streetcar Named Desire - Tennessee Williams - stated that his plays are “Pleas for the understanding of delicate people”. A Streetcar Named Desire explores dysfunctional relationships and conflicts that arise in the breakdown. The 1930’s production code forced Kazan - director of A Streetcar Named Desire - to change the original text. The censors of the Breen Office forced Kazan to omit the film’s raw and candid portrayal of human behavior and relationships. Because the Breen Office controlled of the film industry, it definitely took away the audience’s understanding of the characters and their relationships especially in Stella’s descending of the staircase, dialogue between Blanche and Stella,...
Words: 729 - Pages: 3
...In the coming of age story by Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street, covers a year in the life of a 12 year old girl named Esperanza. This novel, a series of vignettes, explores the life of a young girl in a poor Latino neighborhood in Chicago. Esperanza is destined to escape the run down, crowded home on Mango Street one day. She yearns for freedom, money, safety, friendships, boyfriends, and most importantly a nice home of her own. This is a story of a young girl’s struggle to find her own identity, conveyed through a vast array of complex themes. How do you express yourself as a native Spanish speaker in an English speaking world? “No speak English,” “No habla Español.” How do you eat, how do you get directions, make friends, succeed in school, or scream for help? In The House on Mango Street, the characters feel suffocated at times from their powerlessness over an alien language. They are lowered into the pit of society. They become prisoners...
Words: 1168 - Pages: 5
...in order to fill orders that they could not keep up with; ultimately, Austro-Daimler expanded too quickly and was not successful. In 1916, Rapp resigned from his company and Franz Josef Popp and Max Friz, two Austrians, took over the company. In March of 1916, Rapp Motoren Werke merged with Gustav Flugmaschinefabrik to form Bayersiche Flugzeungwerke. It was renamed Bayersiche Motoren Werke (Bavarian Motor Works), which is today known as BMW. In 1917, BMW’s first aircraft, the type IV, went into production. Flying the type IV aircraft, in 1919, Franz Zeno Diemer set an altitude record of 9,760 meters. Due to restrictions set by the Treaty of Versailles, BMW briefly switched from the manufacture of airplanes to the manufacture of railway car brakes. In 1922, BMW was again to begin the making of aircraft engines. This period was marked by many successes as shown through no fewer than 29 world records in the aviation world. (Popescu, 2000). The BMW logo, introduced in 1920, is based on the circular design of an aircraft propeller and the blue and white of the Bavarian flag. In 1923, BMW began producing motorcycles, which eventually lead to the beginning of BMWs foray into the making of automobiles in 1928. The AM 4, with a top speed of 50 mph was the first production...
Words: 1498 - Pages: 6
...most salient memory one should cherish. The short story focuses on a teenage girl named Connie. Originally, this story is based on a tragic case of murders in history. The writer uses these events in the main character's life as a trigger to speed up her adolescence. This makes Connie is a dynamic character on the reason that her persona changed from the beginning of the story towards the end. The story begins with Connie’s mother pointing out all of her daughters flaws and comparing them to her older sister. She says “stop gawking at yourself. Who are you? You think you’re so pretty?” and “What the hell stinks? Hair spray? You don’t see your sister using that junk.” She is a strict parent so that Connie will turn out like her sister, instead she accidentally hurts her mentally. Connie’s behavior is fueled by her mother’s expectations to grow up in her sister’s footsteps. A number of people would see that Connie is only putting up this act so she could be seen differently by her family and friends. She even has thoughts that she wished her mother was dead and she was dead too, so that her life would have no more problems. That...
Words: 578 - Pages: 3
...A Street Car Named Desire Quiz: Scene 1 1. On what plantation was Stella raised? a) Bella Donna b) Elysian Fields c) Belle Reve d) Laurel Hills 2. What does Stanley throw to Stella which amuses Eunice? a) A muffler b) A stone c) A book d) A package of meat 3. Where had Stella gone when Blanche came to visit? a) To the grocery store b) To the bowling alley c) To school d) To Mr. ____ and Celie’s house 4. In what city does the story take place? a) Chicago b) Laurel c) Birmingham d) New Orleans 5. What does Blanche reveal she is on since leaving teaching because of her nerves? a) A leave of absence b) A vacation c) A permanent sabbatical d) A honeymoon 6. When Eunice is in the apartment with Blanche, why had Blanche asked her to leave? a) She needed to take a shower b) To snoop through her sister’s things c) She wanted to be left alone d) She needed a drink 7. Later we learned why Blanche chose not to answer any of Eunice’s questions about the plantation. What was it? a) She was shy b) She didn’t trust Eunice because she just met her c) She didn’t know how much her sister told her about her d) She lost the plantation 8. Why did Stella begin crying during her and Blanches chat? a) She was touched that her sister had come to see her. b)...
Words: 292 - Pages: 2
...era where men are abusive to women, and blacks began to fit into the society slowly gaining the rights other races have had all along. This is described as the New South where people are always intermingling in a diverse manner. People in the Old South speak exceptionally formal and precise, as opposed to the slang that has been picked up in the New South. There are many reasons that contrast just how different these two eras became. The decay of the old south is present in A Streetcar Named Desire, written by Tennessee Williams. Blanche and Stella’s ancestors were wealthy plantation owners. In the old south majority of people were farmers. Although Blanche and Stella inherited everything from their ancestors, they didn’t have enough income to keep it all. They ended up selling all of it besides a small portion in which their ancestor’s graves laid. During the 1940’s in New Orleans, there is a constant theme of how society and class effects Americans in this era. A Streetcar Named Desire deals with these class differences in an abnormal way. At one point of view is a disappearing Southern belle that has outdated ideals about the upper class and those “beneath” her social class or rank. Neither Stanley nor Stella, put social class into concern when regarding their relationship. Both characters are exempt from their class boundaries all together. Since Stella is a southern belle and has qualities from the old South, its ideals almost seem as if it’s...
Words: 1690 - Pages: 7
...together. The dancing is Lil Buck's own creation and unlike anything I've seen. Hope you enjoy.” This is the preface given by Spike Jonze, to a video he filmed in April of 2011. In this video, an L.A. street dancer named Lil Buck performs a style of dance, which is commonly referred to as “gangster walking”, while classical musician Yo-Yo Ma accompanies him on the cello. The performance cannot be compared to anything else – the blend of street dancing and classical music is truly a unique combination. It’s a combination that we don’t see in everyday life, a distortion of reality – which is most likely why Jonze was drawn to the idea. From his early days as a music video director and all throughout his career, Spike Jonze has had a penchant for escaping the confines of reality. From one of his earliest music videos, which plays in reverse, to films like Being John Malkovich and Where the Wild Things Are, in which he literally brings the viewer in to a new reality. This distortion of reality is a mirror of Spike’s obsession with straying from convention, in narrative and filmmaking technique. While Spike and his characters may seek to escape the confines of reality, what they are really seeking under the surface is acceptance. Spike’s work reveals a common human tension – the desire to be unique, yet also accepted. One reoccurring theme that reverberates through much of Jonze’s work is the idea of a distorted reality. Jonze has proven to be a master of manipulating the techniques...
Words: 2661 - Pages: 11
...Dora, a retired school teacher who writes letters for the illiterate, is propositioned by Wealthy foreigners. They offer to pay Dora $1000 to persuade and to deliver a homeless street boy to a given address. Dora who wants a new TV decides to take the foreigners up on their offer. After dropping off the boy and returning home, Dora later learns from a neighbor that the boy she delivered could be in danger. After hearing this Dora decides to return the money to save the life of the boy. Sing says that “suppose Dora had told her neighbor that it is a tough world, other people have nice new TV’s too..She would have then have become in the eyes of the audience, a monster (pg. 224 The ethical life).” Singer praised Dora for making a morally right decision with saving the boy’s life. In the second scenario, a made up character named Bob is faced with a situation in where he can save the life of a boy who was hit by a train or keep his new Bugatti car that he always wanted. Bob decides to keep his car rather than save the life of the boy. Singer stated that “unlike Dora, too, hid did not mislead the...
Words: 1173 - Pages: 5
...The Great Desires of America in 20th Century Recently is very loud about the film The Great Gatsby with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. People say different opinion about this story which persuade me to buy the book, read it, and find out that how the world looked in those times and how the American dream come true. This book made a huge impression on me and that is way I decided to tell a few words about Mr. Gatsby. The Great Gatsby has been written in 1925 by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigmatic writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald was born in 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to an upper-middle-class family. His mother was of Irish descent, and his father had Irish and English ancestry. He attended Princeton University which he interrupted in 1917 to join the U. S. Army. In 1920 he married Zelda Sayre and they had beautiful daughter Scottie. In Hollywood he had a mistress, but no woman fascinated him more than his wife. He died in age of 44 because of second heart attack. Francis Scott Fitzgerald was one of the leading representatives of the lost generation of American writers. In his works showed his disappointment and anarchic rebellion against the younger generation of American post-war reality. He finished four novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and...
Words: 1268 - Pages: 6
