street car named desire
street car named desire“There is a little piece of good in every person. You just got to know where to find it.” Said Morgan Freeman. A Street Car Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is set in the Kowalski’s in a poor, yet charming French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana. Blanche Dubois, who has been fired from her teaching job, arrives unannounced at the small two-room apartment of her sister, Stella Kowalski. Blanche meets up with Stella and informs her that Belle Reve. Stanley Kowalski, Stella’s husband, looks into the loss of Belle Reve as well as Blanche’s past. He discovers that Blanche had been a schoolteacher who lost her job because she had a fling with one of her students. He also found out that Blanche was ban from the town that she came from, Laurel. After Blanche goes on a date with Mitch, one of Stanley’s good companions, Stanley tells Mitch about Blanche’s past, and Mitch decides to stay away from Blanche. Then, after Stella had gone to the hospital to deliver her baby, Stanley rapes Blanche. Stella is led to believe that her sister had gone crazy and sends Blanche away to a mental hospital. The characters were well developed, especially the character traits of Stella, Stanley, and Blanche.
Stella is the wife of Stanley and the sister of Blanche. A symbol of compromise and adjustment, she is the pawn between the two major characters, Stanley and Blanche. She comes from the same refined and educated background as Blanche, but has forsaken it for life with her lusty, domineering husband. She seems to justify the compromise by constantly saying that she loves Stanley. She accepts his behavior as a characteristic part of their poor, working class lifestyle. When Blanche arrives, she is horrified by Stanley’s uncouth behavior and tells Stella she ought to leave him.
In trying to maintain peace between Stanley and Blanche, Stella is caught in a tough situation, for she loves both of them. She stands up fiercely for her husband, when Blanche tries to instigate her to leave the “brute”. She keeps repeating, “I’m not in anything, I want to get out of” and repeatedly says she loves Stanley and nothing else
matters. Yet when Stanley is cruel to Blanche, Stella fights for her sister too. She tells Stanley that “people like you abused her and forced her to change.” She criticizes him for buying Blanche a one-way bus ticket and for telling Mitch about her past. Stella is torn
between Stanley and Blanche and defends both.
In the end, Stella had to choose between her husband and her sister. It is pitiful to see that when, for once, Blanche speaks the truth about Stanley’s brutal...
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