“A Streetcar Named Desire,” is a play written by Tennessee Williams. It is the story of Blanche, a young woman who lives in Mississippi and goes to visit her older sis- ter, Stella, in New Orleans. As soon as she arrives, she abruptly criticizes her sister’s house. Additionally, Blanche tries to adapt to her new environment and encounters Stella’s surroundings.
During the first five scenes, I identified six important characters: Blanche, Mitch, Stanley, Stella, Steve and Eunice. Firstly, Blanche teaches English in a high school. She is a widow: her husband killed himself when she was young. Thus, this caused her to become a sensitive person and to always want to be complimented. Secondly, as she had a shattering marriage, she looks for love and conceives that she has found it by meeting Mitch.
Mitch is one of Stanley’s friends. His personality can be juxtaposed with Blanche’s since he is emotional and deli- cate: his mother is sick. However, Mitch is not married. Furthermore, in my opinion, Stanley is a very outstanding character in this play, after Blanche and Stella. He is a worker. Although he is Stella’s husband, he does not get along well with Blanche. However, he acts sympathetically with her in the first scene and their argumentative discussions make it easier to understand Stanley’s behavior. In fact, he is a potent man who enjoys bowling and poker. Yet, he sometimes demonstrates violence towards his wife, and his eruptive behavior will lead him to confront Blanche in few scenes. Finally, Stella is a pregnant woman who lives in a building near Eunice, who has a relationship with Steve, Stanley’s friend. She loves Stanley so much that his low social position and his appalling behaviors do not affect her.
In the first scene, the reader is directly positioned as an observer near the building in which Stella lives. The short description of the place at the beginning helps us to perceive it. Stanley arrives from the butcher and throws the package to Stella.Amoment later, Stanley makes his way to bowling with his friends and Stella joins them. However, Blanche arrives just when she left since Blanche’s arrival was not planned.
Blanche is lost, confused when she sees the building in that she was not thinking about arriving at a place like that. Eunice, realizing that she was lost, makes her enter Stella’s house. Blanche becomes more and more astonished as she sees her sister’s house. She even asks herself where she was going to sleep.As soon as Stella arrives, they start a never-ending conversation regarding what happened and how Blanche had lost Belle Reve, their big family home in Mis-
sissippi. Furthermore, when Stanley arrives home from bowling, he meets Blanche and they have a talk about Blanche’s marriage. Blanche ends the talk by saying that she is not feeling well.
In the second scene, Stanley is suspi- cious of Blanche. He thinks that something sounds wrong in the Belle Reve story. He talks to Blanche and mentions the Napo- leonic code. Blanche takes a shower and dresses up. Stanley starts questioning her on her clothes. However, Blanche hesitates to talk in front of her sister, so she asks Stella to go out for a soda. As soon as she leaves, Blanche shows some of her papers to Stan- ley, and finally Stanley understands that he was not right about Blanche’s behavior since he thought that she had swindled him. Next, Stella and Stanley’s friends arrive at the same time and while the men begin playing poker, the women are planning a girls’ night out.
The play continues with the poker night at Stanley and Stella’s in scene three. That night, two important things happen: a controversy between Stanley and the two women, and the encounter of Mitch and Blanche. Firstly, Stanley gets drunk and this causes him to demonstrate violence. He throws the radio from the window. Stella yells at the men and goes to Eunice’s house with Blanche. However, Blanche then realizes that Stella has returned to Stanley who was shouting for her to come back. Secondly, Blanche and Mitch, who had met during the poker night, get on very well.
The fourth scene consists of two characters having opposed opinions: Stella and Blanche argue about Stanley’s behavior. Since she was upset with Stella in that she had returned to her husband the past night, Blanche starts conveying her ideas that Stanley’s manners are not acceptable and that she can not live with him. In addition, she tells her that she can help her escape from this life. However, Stella disagrees and insists that she is happy.
In the fifth scene, Blanche and Stella are having a laugh inasmuch as Blanche is explaining to Stella how she lied to her friend, who could, in her opinion, save her from her situation. In addition, as Stanley asked Blanche about her past, Blanche starts wondering if her sister had heard gossip about her. Stella tries to comfort her. Blanche truthfully tells her sister that she wants Mitch to like her. Furthermore, Stella leaves with Stanley and a young collector appears. Even though Blanche was waiting for Mitch, she kisses the young collector and then tells him to leave. Finally, Mitch arrives with flowers.