Blanche And Stanley Character Analysis Essay

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Blanche and Stanley are two very different characters of the play written by Tennessee Williams. Blanche represents the high class, aristocracy and Stanley is the working group of people. They become opponents the same as those two groups clashed with each other in the first half of the 20th century. The problem with them is that they are both right from their points of view, what makes difficult the choice of the side to the audience. And there is also the issue with interpretation: how the director or the author interprets the play determines the spectator’s feelings. Therefore, I think, in the script, that is what Williams intended to depict, Blanche is sympathetic. But, the film directed by Elia Kazan changes a likeable character, so that Stanley becomes more identified with. To prove that, this …show more content…

But while the former is so in the script, the latter is in the film. This is because of the interpretation. Williams himself shows Blanche as more appealing character. Since in the script there are only words, the reader’s attention is totally to the meaning of those words, so the content of the story becomes the main indicator of the characters’ sympathy. In contrast, Stanley in the film is chosen in the way that he should be identified with and this decision seems to be the director’s interpretation. Kazan wanted to make him more attractive character and therefore chose a good-looking actor, understanding, that the movie is not the same as the script. Here are other factors such as visual and audio ones, determining the audience’s decision about who they would like more. Thus, I feel, which character deserves the spectator’s liking depends highly on the type of the work: whether it is reading the script or watching the film. And consequently, it depends on how one or another director will interpret the play, as it can be seen in the example with Kazan, where Stanley replaces Blanche’s position of a likable