Through A Feminist Lens: Addie Bundren & Blanche DuBois
Each of these stories revolves around the notion of how men dictate the life and happiness of the women in their lives due to both society’s influence and structure. This can be found by analyzing two characters, one from Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire and the other from William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying: Blanche DuBois and Addie Bundren. Furthermore, by understanding the time and setting of the stories and
As the novel begins, Addie Bundren lays dying in her bedroom alone while her eldest son obsessively and noisily builds her a coffin outside her window. While Addie Bundren is typically characterized as a cold and unexpressive mother, who hides away in her room, many …show more content…
In this play, Stanley’s exposes Blanche’s history, which not only turns those in the play against her, prompting young Mitch to say, “You’re not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother,” (Williams 210) but also for the audience to dislike and judge Blanche. Once again, a woman is over-powered by a man and society’s expectations. Particularly in Southern culture, girls are severely sexualized from the moment they begin to develop into womanhood. Society defines a woman’s worth by directly relating it to their virginity status. Therefore, many critics, who are heavily influenced by society’s standards and traditions, find it hard to express empathy towards Blanche as she not only raped but taken to an institution since she is not seen as pure or …show more content…
Using Blanche and Stella’s noticeable dependence on men, Williams exposes and critiques the poor treatment of women during the rough transition from the old to the new South. As Blanche depends on male’s perspective of her own self and puts her fate in the hands of men, she fails to realize her dependence will essentially lead to her own downfall and ruin rather than her salvation and escape. Although reality triumphs over fantasy in the end of the story, Blanche’s still chooses to retreat into her own private fantasies, which enables her to somewhat protect herself from reality’s harsh blows and to refuse the hand that fate has dealt
Each of these stories revolves around the notion of how men dictate the life and happiness of the women in their lives due to both society’s influence and structure. This can be found by analyzing two characters, one from Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire and the other from William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying: Blanche DuBois and Addie Bundren. Furthermore, by understanding the time and setting of the stories and
As the novel begins, Addie Bundren lays dying in her bedroom alone while her eldest son obsessively and noisily builds her a coffin outside her window. While Addie Bundren is typically characterized as a cold and unexpressive mother, who hides away in her room, many …show more content…
In this play, Stanley’s exposes Blanche’s history, which not only turns those in the play against her, prompting young Mitch to say, “You’re not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother,” (Williams 210) but also for the audience to dislike and judge Blanche. Once again, a woman is over-powered by a man and society’s expectations. Particularly in Southern culture, girls are severely sexualized from the moment they begin to develop into womanhood. Society defines a woman’s worth by directly relating it to their virginity status. Therefore, many critics, who are heavily influenced by society’s standards and traditions, find it hard to express empathy towards Blanche as she not only raped but taken to an institution since she is not seen as pure or …show more content…
Using Blanche and Stella’s noticeable dependence on men, Williams exposes and critiques the poor treatment of women during the rough transition from the old to the new South. As Blanche depends on male’s perspective of her own self and puts her fate in the hands of men, she fails to realize her dependence will essentially lead to her own downfall and ruin rather than her salvation and escape. Although reality triumphs over fantasy in the end of the story, Blanche’s still chooses to retreat into her own private fantasies, which enables her to somewhat protect herself from reality’s harsh blows and to refuse the hand that fate has dealt