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A streetcar named desire dramatic devices
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At the time, society’s norms led Stanley to believe that ‘“Every Man is a King!”’ and that he was the king over his own household (Williams, Scene 8 page 131). This ideal influenced Stanley to be power hungry and abusive, which negatively affected his relationship with his wife Stella. However, Stanley never gave up on Stella when she ran away because he was determined to be a good husband (Williams, Scene 3 page 65).
In scene 3 of “A streetcar named desire” Stanley exercises power by using his power abusively and aggressively. While playing a game of poker Stanley gets upset that Stella and Blanche are playing music way too loud and just talking really loud. He tells the girls to stop talking loud and to be quiet. Stanley bursts out, “You hens cut out that conversation in there!”(pg. 54), but it's also Stella’s house and she can do whatever she wants. She says, “This is my house and I'll talk as much as I want to!”(pg. 54).
Up until the denouement, the relationship between Stella and Stanley enables Williams to demonstrate that power is a means of control. When Stanley says “’Every man is king’” there is a suggestion that Stanley uses power in order for him to be able to control the outspoken Stella that has seemingly been influence by the femme fatale ideology of Blanche. This is because the intertextual reference to Huey Long is a means by which Williams can effectively show his male character as using power to show that he is the authoritative figure that will not tolerate female defiance. Furthermore, what further demonstrates that Williams wanted to present power as something that allows control is Stella’s attitudes to Stanley where prior she states “Stanley’s
A while after she got settled in, Blanche witnessed Stanley physically abusing her sister, Stella, and then started secretly rebuking Stanley to Stella. She saw their relationship as unhealthy and tried everything that she could to destroy it. After overhearing Blanche telling Stella to get rid of him, Stanley begins to steadily contemplate his revenge. He had made it his personal goal to dig deeper into her past and he found pretty much all the information that he needed in order to get rid of her. In order to preserve his relationship with his wife, Stanley came up with an amazingly credible plan to permanently get rid of
“In the state of Louisiana we have the Napoleonic code according to which what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband and vice versa” (22). Although he sounds like is supporting Stella in the fact that she was “cheated” out of her property, he is really being self-considerate. This quote shows that Stanley feels entitled to whatever Stella owns. Stanley is a man of the working class, and with this estate and the wealth that comes with it, Stanley feels as though he is also wealthy. With this wealth, Stanley would feel and act more even more superior than
One major similarity between Blanche and Stanley is that they both like to manipulate or control other people, to make themselves feel better. Even though there are different ways Stanley and Blanche take control of other people they still do it in a familiar matter. For example, Blanche takes power and influence over people by lying to others and herself, to make them believe in something that actually never happened, with fantacy, therefore makes Blanche feel greater, than she actually may be. To go deeper in depth, to prove that Blanche is manipulative she also says. ¨I don 't tell the truth.
Because of his gender, Stanley has power. Stanley asks for forgiveness when he returns. When Stella forgives him, he proves once more that he is in charge. Stella's character has the least intriguing traits. This is because she fulfills everyone's requests.
He desires a normal life with Stella, without Blanche in the picture. As told in A Streetcar Named Desire--Psychoanalytic Perspectives, “After exposing all of Blanches shameful secrets and destroying her plans to marry Mitch, Stanley completes her violation and subjugation by raping her, which drives her to insanity” (A Streetcar Named Desire--Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Silvio). Stanley desires a normal life without Blanche so bad, that he completely broke her to get it. Stanley also wants to be desired.
In the play A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, the main characters, Blanche Dubois and Stanley Kowalski, share a great dislike and distrust towards one another, ultimately becoming the basis for the story’s conflict. Their common contemption stems from their contrasting personalities and backgrounds, their incompatibility of being able to function under the same environment, and inability to adapt to the situations they find themselves in. Although Blanche detests Stanley and the manner in which he behaves in, she realises that he is a necessary part for Stella’s life in New Orleans, an environment that greatly differs from the southern aristocracy that Stella and Blanche once lived in. Blanche expresses this idea by stating, “Oh,
The rape can also be seen as Stanley asserting his dominance over Blanche as she has taken his wife’s attention away from him long
He is verbally and physically abusive towards his wife, Stella, in order to establish his power over her. He is described as giving a ‘loud whack of his hand on her thigh’ to which she merely retaliates ‘That’s not fun, Stanley.’ Whilst ‘the men laugh’. This shows how abusive behaviour towards women is normalised and accepted within this patriarchal society as the men simply choose to ‘laugh’ along with Stanley.
The Fight for Dominance In today’s society, gender norms convince men that unless they are able to control women, they are weak. Considered the inferior gender, women must find new ways to prove their own strength, whether it be through manipulation or their sexuality. The battle between the two continues as men strive to remain dominant, often by immoral means, and women attempt to gain the upper hand. In the screenplay, “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams, the sexual tension and struggle for dominion between Blanche and Stanley is evident, and as the play continues, Blanche's promiscuity and Stanley's predatory nature foreshadow an inevitable confrontation.
Williams uses the expressionist technique “The ‘Varsouviana’ is filtered into weird distortion, accompanied by the cries and noises of the jungle” to parallel Blanche’s inner mind and depicts Blanche’s deranged mental state after Stella’s betrayal. The imagery ‘Lurid reflections appear on the walls in odd, sinuous shapes’ highlights her mental turbulence and the stage directions ‘mysterious voices behind walls, as if reverberated through a canyon of rock…the echo sounds in threatening whispers’ heightens tension, positioning the audience to witness the overwhelming fear and exaggeration of her senses, further emphasising the detrimental impact Stella’s decision made. The Streetcar Named Desire also examines the influence that a person’s social standing can have. Stanley’s statement in scene 2 ‘The Kowalskis and Dubois have different notions’ indicates their social upbringing has influenced the way they think, hence disrupting their connection and loyalty towards one another. The use of their family name is metonymic for their ancestry and social standing, addressing the barriers derived from a social hierarchy which have affected their relationship.
Stella lived her life depending on him whereas Blanche was currently on her own after her marriage and had no one to depend on but herself. Unfortunately there was a commotion that occured in scene 4 between Stanley and Stella. Blanche went to check up on Stella and was brutally convincing her to leave Stanley. The way that Stella responded to her made her look naive over the fact that Stanley was the issue. When Blanche and Stella were talking, Stella goes, “Stanley doesn’t give me a regular allowance, he likes to pay bills himself but this morning he gave me ten dollars to smooth things over (Williams, 78).
In one particular scene in the movie Stanley becomes furious with Blanche’s disrespect towards him and proceeds to tell her that he is the king of the house and she is to do as he says. It seems that Stanley felt a sense of achievement by making women fear him. Tennessee William uses this wicked man to help the audience see how Southern culture displayed unethical
