Theme Of Violence In A Streetcar Named Desire

Great Essays
Tennessee Williams’ dramatic presentation of violence in A Streetcar Named Desire is evident within relationships of the play. Prominent scenes from the play include intense portrayals of violence, such as Stella being domestically abused by her husband Stanley, Blanche recalling the suicide of her past closeted boyfriend Allen and when Stanley rapes Blanche at the end of scene ten. However, physical abuse is not the extent of this key motif as Williams’ presents verbal and emotional violence as well. These are all further intensified by the stage directions, physical theatre, lighting and sound- all of which are key ingredients in Williams magnetically ravenous play.

Evidence of violence are explored through physically abusive relationships …show more content…
Many laws against homosexuality were passed and it was even declared to be a ‘mental illness’. With this context in mind, one can see why Blanche was repulsed by it. Blanche’s deliberate act of cruelty of saying to her husband “I know! I know! You disgust me…”, led him to escape from the casino, putting a revolver at the back of his mouth and then shooting himself. Whilst recalling these events to Mitch, harsh lighting and abrupt sound is used “[The headlight of the locomotive glares into the room as it thunders past]”, to supplement Blanche’s frightful reflections. Following from the discovery of her husband’s true identity and his sudden suicide, Blanche oversaw multiple deaths in her family and the ultimate loss of her ancestral home Belle Rêve. All of the tragedies in her life inflicted a great amount of emotional and mental impact on Blanche, as she turns to alcohol and sexual promiscuity, in order to escape the brutalities and the void of loneliness in her life.

In the last few scenes of the play, Blanche and her lies begin to unravel as Mitch is told the truth about her history from …show more content…
Blanche DuBois was already deeply-damaged emotionally and economically vulnerable seeks hope and her own hero in this new setting, but in a cruel twist of fate, she suffers a full-blown mental breakdown at the hands of Stanley Kowalski. Violence mainly occurs within Stanley’s behaviour and Blanche’s past, but he does not restrict violence to just the physical sort, as he manifests brutality in emotional and psychological violence. Williams uses the motif of violence to emphasise conflict within the play through Stanley and Blanche and to highlight issues in society between the genders and different

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    Blanche has been so affected by this experience because of both the depth of her love and because she blames herself. Blanche knows that Allan shot himself because of her words to him, which reveals death to be a major theme in ‘A Streetcar…’ because Blanche is unable to think about his death without with an immense sense of guilt and sorrow. Williams also uses these deaths to serve the purpose of leading Blanche into what becomes her bleak and dangerous past. Blanche’s explanation of her actions shows how psychologically scarred she is as a result of a life burdened with death. She tells Mitch she lived in a house where “dying old women remembered their dead men” and of how after Allan’s death she sought protection “in unlikely places.”…

    • 1100 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The events takes place at New Orleans where Stanley and his wife lives. The text debates all kinds of men’s brutality against women. Because Stanley was an army officer, so his treatment to his wife was strict. Williams supports the theme of anger in his play through using literary devices such as symbolism and sound effects.…

    • 323 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Blanche’s Mental Health In the late 1940’s mental illness was a big thing. Some people didn’t know how to deal with it at the time, and some were just sent to mental hospitals for help. In Tennessee William 's, A Streetcar Named Desire, one of his main characters showed signs of a mental illness. Blanche Dubois is dealing with signs of a mental illness, that is from her traumatizing past.…

    • 1672 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Every person has had a traumatic past or an unfortunate event that has affected them one way or another; all have a different way of coping, and for Tennessee Williams it was writing. One of his better known plays,“A Streetcar Named Desire”, is a play constructed of pieces of his past childhood. The play is constructed of symbolism, aggressive diction, and conflict to be as a stage for William’s broken, beaten down mind. Tennessee Williams was born in Columbus, Mississippi; he had two siblings and his mother and father- a full house. Though it may seem like he had a complete undamaged family, life wasn’t easy for him.…

    • 311 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Her past is revealed only through flashbacks, which come as her own confession to Mitch and through what Stanley finds about her (O'Shea 12). The play is divided into three significant seasonal periods over which it takes place: the spring of Blanche’s arrival, the summer of her hope of a second chance, and the fall of her exposure, defeat, and removal to the mental institution (Abbotson51). Williams, in his play, presents many themes which are relevant to psychological and social problems in his time. First of all the theme of violence; the problem of domestic violence was ignored in American society. Wife-beating was regarded a family matter rather than a crime or a critical social issue.…

    • 1132 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Tennessee Williams wrote his play A Streetcar Named Desire in a time where women were heavily oppressed by the patriarchal society in which they lived. While men were seen as the superior gender, women were constantly undermined and expected to stay at home to raise their family rather than go out and pursue their own jobs or independent lifestyles. Throughout the play, the reader can observe the downfall of a character like Blanche DuBois who was nothing like the idealistic conservative female that society expected her to be. Living in the household of the aggressive Stanley Kowalski, who was used to controlling everything around him, her feelings of inferiority were only intensified. By Williams representing both genders like this, it helped…

    • 829 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    From the first scene the audience learns that Blanche and Stella were brought up on a plantation and that Stanley and his friends are poor and uneducated. In the first scene the two families come together in a scruffy environment, it is therefore Blanche who must adjust to the situation. When Stanley exposes Blanche's past and when he rapes her, he turns her ‘upper-class’ upbringing (of which she is very proud) into something without any meaning. The conflict, therefore, is bigger than Stanley vs. Blanche or even male vs. female, it is the Old South vs. the new ind ustrial age and the upper-class life vs. the ‘common’ life. With Blanche, it is not only her sinful ways that causes her misery, it is her upper-class upbringing and clinging to the past that is one of the reasons for her downfall - a tragic end for a tragic character.…

    • 1478 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The motif of violence is manifest throughout Williams’ ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, not only in the form of acts that are explicitly forceful and destructive, but in the implicit conflicts that are explored within the play, whether between men and women, light and dark, reality and fantasy or the Old South and the New South. Violence is most often associated with the character of Stanley, who progresses violent behaviour and exudes a sense of brutishness that contributes to the play’s overall parallelism to an “urban jungle”, in which Blanche will inevitably become a victim. Sexual violence is a prevalent facet of the play, which makes eminent the subordination of the female characters under the claimed prerogative of men. In particular, domestic…

    • 1140 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    However, in her relationship with Mitch, she thirsts for a relationship of equality, which would exemplify a norm of a post-World War II era. Blanches’ struggle to evolve with society is evident when she states, “I was just obeying the law of nature… The one that says the lady must entertain the gentleman-or no dice!”(Williams 101). Blanche still feels as though it is her prerogative to “entertain” the man, especially as she gets older and becomes a self-described old maid. In contrast, Blanche expects to be treated with equality by Mitch. Mitch begins to embrace Blanche against her will and she sternly says to him, “I said unhand me, sir… Now, Mitch.…

    • 1343 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    This quote depicts how the author Williams characterizes Blanche as narcissist, even after being stricken with poverty and misfortune. The structure of the story play a critical role in this where the readers can compare the past of Blanche and just how twisted of a turn that it takes near the end of the play which gives a very powerful ending that ends with this quote. The dilemma of Blanche with fantasy and reality are the major factors that make her unable to accept reality for what truly is happening around her. The mood of this quote is very neutral and a sane person would have reacted in a more emotional manner. Overall Blanche has protected herself with illusion against the true of horror of reality.…

    • 1171 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In a Streetcar Named Desire, Stanley is an overbearing, arrogant and cruel character throughout the play and is known for being abusive to women since he believes in the Napoleonic code. Tennessee Williams shows how the character Stanley abuses his power of Stella and Blanche by revealing that the violence progresses through the play as the women are more and more abused by the men. Blanche is an important character throughout the play as she is mentioned in all the scenes. As the readers, we know that Blanche's presence in the Kowalski’s household threatens Stanley’s authority which causes conflict and abuse during the play. threatens Stanley’s power and authority in the Kowalski household, this leads to Stanley abusing his…

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    A Streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams’ famous play, which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1948, is a tragic story about a woman named Blanche DuBois, an aging woman who clings on to delusions of reality in order to maintain her sense of self-worth (Newlin 140). Blanche goes to live with her sister and her sister’s husband, Stella and Stanley Kowalski, where she upsets their relationship and violently clashes with Stanley, due to their inherent differences (Williams). Environmental…

    • 1629 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    3.3.5 TST Both Judge Brack and Stanley are very oppressive and antagonistic characters in their respective stories. Ibsen and Williams placed these characters in their stories for a very important reason nonetheless. In a Streetcar named desire, the character of Stanley assists in the audience’s ability to see the overall theme of the play: this being that one cannot use fantasy to cover up reality. Stanley helps to develop this theme because he is the “reality” that Blanche has to deal with in her life.…

    • 637 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    However, Mitch lets a little thing such as Blanche’s past ruin what could have been a happy ending for him, just because by society 's standards Blanche was not “clean enough.” Stanley’s rape of Blanche and its outcome also helps support the argument that Blanche is not the enemy. Stanley rapes Blanche because he resents her for thinking she is smarter and better than him. Finding out about her soiled past makes him feel entitled to harm her. Blanche’s believed superiority over Stanley is made clear quite frequently.…

    • 1561 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Blanche Dubois is the protagonist of the play “A Streetcar Named Desire” written by Tennessee Williams. Her character is portrayed as a middle aged woman who is supposed to be a going crazy because she drowns in her own thoughts. Blanche is able to keep her thoughts together, but “ critic Anca Vlasopolos interprets Blanche’s downfall as a demonstration of William’s sympathy for her circumstances and a condemnation of the society that destroys her” (Blanche Dubois An Antihero). Blanche herself says that she doesn’t want realism she wants magic,that shows forth in her character’s personality and her standard of living. Blanche is meant to be portrayed as a woman of fancy living, coming from a family of riches and even using her name as being…

    • 1571 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays