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A Street Car Named Desire: Character Comparison

Introduction

The play A Street Car Named Desire takes place in New Orleans at the home of Stella Kowalski. Due to the loss of their home Belle Reve in Laurel and lack of money, Stella's sister, Blanche DuBois, decides to come visit her sister. Throughout the play, Stella tries to balance her relationships with her unruly husband and her distressed sister (Bak 58). When her husband Stanley figures out Blanche's lies and tells Stella, Stella is stuck between a rock and a hard place and must decide whose side she wants to take. Stella knows that her sister Blanche has been through tough times, including losing her husband who committed suicide. In this essay, I present a character comparison of the two sisters (Blanche and Stella) in the play.

Discussion

Blanche DuBois is one of the main characters in the play A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) by Tennessee Williams. It is considered one of the most significant figures of the American theater. In the play, Blanche comes from Laurel (Mississippi) to see her younger sister Stella Kowalski in New Orleans. She is horrified to see that Stella lives in a slum in which her ??husband Stanley Kowalski spent his time drinking and playing poker with his friends. She remains with her sister, and even flirts with Mitch, a friend of Stanley a little more sensitive than others (Williams, 54). She even reveals that in fact she was thrown out of the homestead of "Belle Reve" for being unable to pay mortgages. After the death of her husband Allan Grey, his mental health has only declined, and she is on the brink of madness.

With the advent of the home of Stella's sister, Blanche DuBois and Stanley started having an antagonistic relationship. Aristocrat Blanche allows him to openly look at the Stanley from top to bottom, showing him that he is unworthy of Stella, and she calls him a "monkey" and often scornfully recalls his Polish origins, that insult Stanley. His dislike for Blanche is further enhanced when she begins an affair with another Stanley Mitch, and when it allows itself to interfere in family quarrels. From his friend, who knew Blanche in her past life, Stanley discovers that she arrived in New Orleans because it was left without a home. Dubois family mansion, as it turns Kowalski, was sold for debt. Most of Blanche of numerous rumors about his love story began after the suicide of her husband. Stanley says Mitch was the cause that led to broke off relations with Blanche (McGlinn 524).

At night, when Stella gave birth to her first child with Stanley, he returned home drunk and meets Blanche, too raving about his happy past. He begins to stick to rough it and gets rebuffed, until an enraged Stanley rapes her. This deprives the last vestiges of Blanche's self-esteem and leads to the brink of a nervous breakdown. A few weeks later, it was at the insistence of Stanley that Blanche ...