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Streetcar Named Desire Comparison

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A Streetcar Named Desire was produced and directed in 1951 by Elia Kazan. Based on the play written by Tennessee Williams, the film follows Blanche DuBois as she leaves her beloved hometown, Belle Reeve, and moves in with her sister, Stella Kowalski and husband, Stanley. Blanches flirtatious but traumatized personality causes problems for Stella and Stanley whose relationship is based off of sexual desires. Blanche is going through a battle in which she finds herself guilty for her late husbands suicide and this distress eventually leads to a huge conflict in the Kowalski household. Vivien Leigh played the dramatic Blanch DuBois and received an Oscar for the best female in a leading role. Marlon Brando who played Stanley captured the character …show more content…

At the beginning of the film, Blanche is shown arriving at the train station asking for directions, setting the mood for how helpless she is. She also mentions the actual streetcar named Desire and it is shown brining Blanche to the Kowalski’s. In contrast, the play starts off with Blanche already at the apartment and nothing much is said about the streetcar. The movie also includes the bowling alley, which is never seen in the play. At the alley, Stanley is shown fighting with his friends and acting like an animal, which introduces his animal like behavior. One major difference made in the movie was that of the ending. In the movie Blanche seems to have found comfortableness in the doctor and gives a last look on screen of helplessness. In the play Stella screams after Blanche but then goes to hug Stanley. However in the film Stella takes her baby and runs upstairs after Blanche leaves, screaming to Stanley how she will never go back to him. She does eventually go back to him because she only went upstairs. This was included in the film because it represents the effect Blanche has had on Stella but that Stanley will always

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959 Words | 4 Pages

The play A Streetcar Named Desire is one of the most notable plays of the late 1940s to early 1950s and is still prevalent in the theater community today. It originally opened on Broadway in a 1947 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, today more commonly known as the Barrymore Theatre, preforming for a little over a thousand patrons. The original Stanley was played by Marlon Brando, who would reprise this role in the movie adaptation. At the Barrymore Theatre, the set was quite complex with a full stairway and banister, a pallor with a 4-chair dinning set and all the dressings of a then modern, but lower-class apartment.

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1465 Words | 6 Pages

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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1085 Words | 5 Pages

The play “A Streetcar Named Desire” is about an emotionally unstable lady named Blanche. She moves in with her youngest sister and her husband because the landlord took the land away from Blanche because they could not pay for it anymore. After being their for a while Blanche starts remembering her horrible past which is something she was trying to do in the first place. The husband of Stella, Stanley Kowalski was also someone that made Blanche’s life miserable for complicating everything and harassing her in every possible way. Death is one of the most symbolic terms in this play.

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978 Words | 4 Pages

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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513 Words | 3 Pages

The casting in the play involved Marlon Brando as Stanley, Kim Hunter as Stella, Jessica Tandy as Blanche DuBois, and Karl Malden as Mitch. The cast of the movie was the same as the play but a different actress for Blanche DuBois. In the movie, Jessica Tandy was replaced by Vivien Leigh. Kazan thought she would add more to the movie. Although, the actor who played Stanley Kowalski didn't change, some of his features did.

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159 Words | 1 Pages

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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741 Words | 3 Pages

In the play A Streetcar Named Desire written by Tennessee Williams, the main character, Blanche DuBois, travels to New Orleans to stay with her sister, Stella, and Stella’s husband, Stanley Kowalski. Throughout the play, sexulaity is seen as a strong motivator for many of the characters actions. Early in the play, Stanley is introduced as a particularly sexual character, “ Since earliest manhood the center of his life has been pleasure with women, the giving and taking of it, not with weak indulgence... He sizes women up with a glance, with sexual classifications…” (Williams 25).

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452 Words | 2 Pages

How are dramatic elements used to convey and enrich meaning? In the play, A Streetcar Named Desire, the theme used throughout the work, is appearances vs reality. This can be considered a broad meaning, however in this case, the two main characters, Stanley and Stella, appear to have a loving, safe relationship. In reality, Stanley is quite abusive towards Stella.

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903 Words | 4 Pages

1). Williams states that he takes with “the power and pride of a richly feathered bird among hens”(265; sc. 1). This comparison to animals portrays Stanley as the alpha male in this story. He views woman as objects and his sexual desires are strong and primitive. Whenever he fights with Stella, the “things that happen between a man and women in the dark… make everything else seem – unimportant” (321; sc.4).

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1266 Words | 6 Pages

A streetcar named desire was written by Tennessee Williams in 1947, in purpose to show the “declining of the upper class and the domination of the bourgeois middle class in the U.S.A. where the south agriculture class could not compete with the industrialization.” Blanche Dubois the protagonist of our story, a southern beauty that is trapped by the restrictive laws of her society. But she broke them, and eventually put herself in a state, where she had no job and no house. So she had to go to her sister, Stella and live with her and her sister’s husband, Stanley. While staying there, she created a façade for her to hide her flaws and kept acting as a lady, where she is anything but that.

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757 Words | 4 Pages

As she was kissing him and reached into his back pocket, took the money for herself and then tucked it in her bra. I found their relationship very affectionate throughout the movie where I did not picture this when reading the play. However, I think that the director was very clever when incorporating their passionate relationship between Stella and Stanley. I believe this because it proved how sexually driven and aggressive Stanley was which almost had a foreshadowing affect on the end relationship between Blanche and Stanley. I also think this portrayal of raw emotion was an extremely important aspect of the film because inner emotion and motives drove every characters actions throughout the play.

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1245 Words | 5 Pages

Stereotypical gender roles have existed as long as human culture has, becoming a natural part of all of our lives. Within each gender lies a variety of stereotypes and expectations. Most notably for men they are often depicted as tough and the family provider. Whereas women are often shown to be soft and vulnerable. Throughout the play A Streetcar Named Desire the author; Tennessee Williams illustrates the main characters, Stanley, Stella, Mitch and Blanche with these stereotypes.

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652 Words | 3 Pages

It also highlights Stella’s submissive nature, and how she conforms to the sexist societal expectations of a helpless and fragile woman. Although the surrounding male characters disregard Stanley’s abuse, the audience is repulsed by it and identifies it as morally wrong. This shows how Williams is criticising the acceptance of this abusive behaviour in society, using Stella’s dilemma as a victim to plea for a change. Stanley is even abusive when displaying his

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1547 Words | 7 Pages

Tennessee Williams wrote “A Streetcar Named Desire” (Williams, 1947) It is based in New Orleans a new cosmopolitan city which is poor but has raffish charm. The past is representing old south in America 1900’s and present is representing new America post world war 2 in 1940’s. Past and present are intertwined throughout the play in the characters Stanley, Blanche, Stella and mitch. Gender roles show that males are the dominant and rule the house which Stanley is prime example as he brings home food and we learn of one time when he got cross and he smashed the light bulbs.

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584 Words | 3 Pages

The day I changed my first diaper was one that changed my life. When I was at the pubescent age of eleven, I was asked by my family to change my Cousin Isabella’s diaper. For most people this would seem like an easy and simple task that would be done very quickly. This was not the case for me. Isabella is one of the feistiest toddlers that I have ever met, and I love her with my entire heart.

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