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Stanley Kowalski Character Analysis

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Out of the entire cast in A Streetcar Named Desire, there are only four major characters. Out of those four, one that stands out quite more than the others is Stanley Kowalski. In the play and film, Stanley Kowalski is the working-class husband of Stella Kowalski (nèe Dubois). Stanley is characterized as hard-working, passionate, and loyal but also short-tempered and brutal. From the beginning, Stanley takes no liking to Stella's sister, Blanche Dubois, and this enmity between the two grows worse and worse over the course of the story. In the end, Stanley, after all his plans against Blanche, gets away with it, at least in the play. In the movie, he still ends up winning against Blanche, but is punished in the end. Stanley, in a sense, is a fascinating character. Some characters may sympathize or relate to him. Others may dislike him, or hate him entirely. When initially compared to Blanche in the very beginning of the story, Stanley appears to be more sane and well-grounded than his sister-in-law. …show more content…

While Blanche may not be the best interaction to prove this as Stanley's malignant feelings mainly stem from their different backgrounds and ideals, his interactions with Stella prove more. Whenever Stella attempts to scold or yell at Stanley, he completely shuts her down. When she, Blanche, and Mitch refused to turn off the radio, Stanley immediately turns to violence, throwing the radio out the window. While it can be argued that he may actually love Stella as he calls for her and sires a child with her, the general overview could be that their marriage is driven on lust, passion and desire, rather than true love. Also connecting with the stereotype of the 1950s, it was not common for a wife to leave her husband, so she may only be staying with him as she is still "blinded by

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The author of The Red Convertible Louise Erdrich was born in Little Falls, Minnesota in 1954. As the daughter of a Chippewa Indian mother and a German-American father, Erdrich explores Native-American themes in her works, with major characters representing both sides of her heritage. In an award-winning series of related novels and short stories, Erdrich has visited and re-visited the North Dakota lands where her ancestors met and mingled, representing Chippewa experience in the Anglo-American literary tradition. In addition to her numerous award-winning novels and short story collections, Erdrich has published three critically acclaimed collections of poetry, Jacklight (1984), Baptism of Desire (1989) and Original Fire: New and Selected Poems

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Stanley is a blunt, practical, and animalistic man who has no patience for subtleties and refinement. His animalistic character shows the moment he meets Blanche, when he, moving with “animalistic joy” (24), “sizes” Blanche up with “sexual classifications” and “crude image” in his mind (25). Under his stare, Blanche draws “involuntarily back” (25), a movement that foreshadows their later conflict and her subsequent demise. His practical and straightforward side shows when he interrogates Blanche about the sale of Belle Reve to make sure that his wife is not swindled. His straightforward, practical nature makes him “boom” out of impatience (46) and demands Blanche to cut straight to the point when she tries to talk in an indirect, subtle manner as befit a Southern gentlewoman.

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He regretted it and was crying for her to go back to him and love him. Also, love in this story is filled with insecurities and secrets. Blanche and Mitch would have been official, but Mitch believed what he was being told about Blanche and did not want her for hearing she was not “pure”. Stanley and Stella are in

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Stella’s sister, Blanche, sees through the illusion and can see how toxic the marriage really is. Stanley and Blanche come from distinctly different backgrounds, Stanley is from the working class while Blanche comes from wealth. Williams uses these two contrasting points of views on marriage, to show the issues of possessiveness, class, and sexism. When it comes to Stanley’s marriage to Stella, one of the most notable characteristics is how possessive Stanley is. An example of this is when Stanley found out that Blanche and therefore Stella, lost their estate.

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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.

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In Scene 10, Blanche is begging Stanley to let her get by and he is not moving to let her through. Stanley says that he thinks Blanche would not be too bad to interfere with in a sexual way going back to Scene 6, when he would walk through the rooms in his underwear at night near Blanche. Blanche complained about the little bit of privacy she had in the house and that was exemplified when Stanley later picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. Blanche had thought in the beginning that her situation was frightful, but never to the degree in which she experienced towards the end of the

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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.

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In Blanche and Stanley’s initial interactions, there was an air of sexual tension. This tension dissipates completely as the play progresses, and their relationship turns into a resentful and hateful one. Throughout the play, Stanley has several violent outbursts towards Stella that worry Blanche. This allows Stanley to assert dominance over both women. At the end of the play, Stanley releases his pent up anger and frustration toward Blanche through a sexual attack.

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He tries to remind her of all the good times that they had together, as to provide an example of what will happen when Blanche leaves. This quotation shows Stanley’s distain towards Blanche and how he regrets bringing her into his home. It shows how Stanley is fed up with how Blanche acts and how she treats Stella, and that he does not

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Stella accepts her willingly, however, Stanley begins to hear rumors. Blanche starts to date one of Stanley’s friends, Mitch, but when Stanley informs him about her past, Mitch basically tells her

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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.

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As soon as Blanche steps into the Kowalski household and meets Stanley, it is evident that her appearance is a threat to his superiority. Both characters attempt to establish dominance through their control over Stella, a minor character who exists mainly to deepen the contrast between Blanche and Stanley. In scene four, Blanche advises Stella to leave her abusive husband and attempts to influence her by saying “I have a plan for us both, to get us both—out!” (69).

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He had slaps her in her face, when Stanley is in front of his friends he get out of hand. He asks different in front of his wife Stella. In the real world, when men hang out with their friends, they feel like they are the boss, so they start to show out to proof that they are man enough to put women in there place. Knowing that when they are around their wife’s they act so different because if their friends see how men act, they would think that he is a coward. When Stanley is with Stella, he is sober and he is sweet and caring to her.

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1413 Words | 6 Pages

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).

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847 Words | 4 Pages

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

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