A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams :: A Streetcar Named Desire Essays

Set in the French Quarter of revolutionary siege of Orleans during the restless years following World War Two, A trolley car NAMED DESIRE is the story of Blanche DuBois, a fragile and neurotic wo valet de chambre on a desperate prowl for someplace in the world to prefigure her own. After being exiled from her hometown of Laurel, Mississippi for seducing a seventeen-year-old boy at the direct where she taught English, Blanche explains her unexpected appearance on Stanley and Stellas (Blanches sister) doorstep as nervous exhaustion. This, she claims, is the expiration of a series of financial calamities which have recently claimed the family plantation, Belle Reve. Suspicious, Stanley points out that down the stairs Louisianas Napoleonic code what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband. Stanley, a sinewy and brutish man, is as territorial as a panther. He tells Blanche he doesnt like to be swindled and demands to see the bill of sale. This encounter defines Stanley and Blanch es relationship. They are opposing camps and Stella is caught in no-mans-land. alone Stanley and Stella are deeply in love. Blanches efforts to impose herself between them only enrages the living creature inside Stanley. When Mitch -- a card-playing buddy of Stanleys -- arrives on the scene, Blanche begins to see a way out of her predicament. Mitch, himself alone in the world, reveres Blanche as a bonny and refined woman. Yet, as rumors of Blanches past in Laurel begin to come up to her, her circumstances become unbearable. Characters Blanche Dubois Blanche Dubois is the older sister of Stella Kowalski who visits them in New Orleans and stays throughout the summer. She was a schoolteacher of English in Mississippi and presents herself as very prim, proper, and prudent. Her name is French and she says, It Dubois means woodwind and Blanche means white, so the two together mean white woods. desire an orchard in spring (Act III, pg. 177). She was married to a young man named Allan , who committed suicide when she was very young. She drinks and smokes and tells lies. She suffers from continual delusions of hearing polka tunes and gunshots. Stella loves her dearly, nevertheless Stanley is in direct opposition to her false appearance and selfish attitude. Blanche cannot be around direct light and is overly concerned with her appearance, accessories, bathing, and age. She has a truncated romance with Mitch and is later committed to a mental institution. Stanley Kowalski Stanley is Stellas strong and handsome husband.