A Streetcar Named Desire Identity Essay

Human beings come in all shapes and sizes and that is no different regarding their identities and personalities. To what extent are we human beings free to shape our own identities? Many different factors decide a person's identity, some let their wealth or status create their identities for them, while others don't let anything affect their end goal. With these factors known, it can be seen that people's identities affect how people think and treat others which I believe is another factor for someone to shape their identity in a certain way. In the book A

Streetcar Named Desire and the poem A Daily Joy To Be Alive, there are elements of identity, and in both, you can see how different people can shape their identity to what they want.

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This can be seen even further in the book in scene 1 where Eunice has a conversation with Blanche about how bad the area looked and Eunice was explaining that “It’s sort of messed up right now but when it's clean it’s real sweet.” To which Blanche responds with “Is it?” showing her doubts about the place even though she has nowhere else to go, her past wealth manipulated her identity.

Status in life or trying to please someone else is another factor that affects a person's identity. As shown in A Streetcar Named Desire with the character Stanley who let people around him create his powerful identity. Throughout the book, he becomes more and more focused on creating a power dynamic and making sure he was on top. At the beginning of

In scene 1 he says “Lay…her cards on the table” referring to what kind of woman he's interested in while having a conversation with Blanche then later on in the text he rapes her showing how far his character is fleshed out. It shows how great someone or a person's surroundings can affect a person.

Although it can be argued that people let their surroundings, wealth, and people can greatly change their identity it can also be argued that there are people with a set goal that won't change for anything or anyone. In stanza 1 of A Daily Joy to Be Alive the author, Jimmy Baca, it goes as follows: “No matter how serene things may be in my life, how well things are going, my body and soul are two cliff peaks from which a dream of who I can be falls, and I must learn to fly again each day, or die.” In this stanza, he talks about no matter how his life is going and how he must learn to deal with it or die. He also states “I do not live to retrieve or multiply what my father lost or gained.” In this quote, he is talking about no matter how successful his dad becomes or unsuccessful he is, he won't take advantage of it because he is his own person, and what another person does has no effect on him, the complete opposite of Stanley and