Custom «A Streetcar Named Desire» Essay Paper Sample

A Streetcar Named Desire is basically revolves around the theme of cultural clash in the sense that the two main characters that is Blanche Dubois who is seen as a fading relic of the Old South live in a totally different world from Stanley Kowalski who is a member of the fast rising industrial urban working class. In the play, Blanche appears to be a character whose virtues and practices with respect to culture revolves around alcoholism and delusions of grandeur. Blanche appears to be a character who creates an illusion of always shielding others from the realities of nature but mostly, it can be said that Blanche’s is particularly shielding herself from reality. This is with even an overall attempt to make herself more appealing to the male suitors.

Blanche visits her sister Stella Kowalski at her apartment located in the French Quarters of New Orleans. Blanche uses a street car route known as “desire” and all though the course of her journey, the steamy ambience of the urban setting is something that she is not used to. However, Blanche’s sister Stella is somehow uncertain as to how her husband will react regarding the visit by Blanche. Blanche explains to her sister in detail the recent occurrences most particularly how they lost their ancestral plantations as a result of epic fornications. Blanche goes on further to inform Stella that she has been given some time off as an English teacher by her supervisor while in actual sense what happened is that she was fired for having an affair with a 17 year old student.

Going by the said plot, one cannot but sympathize with Blanche. Everything in her life seems to be taking a rather unpleasant direction. Her expulsion from her job is not the only seduction she has engaged in but rather is just one of her many problems that made her escape Laurel. Blanche had also been in a brief marriage which was cut short by the discovery that her husband was having a homosexual affair and subsequently his suicide a situation that has seen Blanche withdraw into a world of endless illusions and fantasies concerning what she regards as a normal and perfect life.

Stella’s husband Stanley Kowalski is a more brutish husband how is both physically and emotionally abusive. However, Stella has had to contend with that since the said characteristics are what initially attracted her to her husband. Blanche fails to understand how her sister is able to cope with a relationship that seems to be based on very powerful and even animalistic sexual chemistry. The arrival of Blanche is not so pleasant to her sister who sees it as a disruption of the mutual system of dependence between her and her husband. Unlike the expected scenario, it is expected that every member of a family is happy when another member of the family goes to visit them. However, this is not the case with Blanche who is seen as a would be disturbance to the rather already disturbed relationship.

Stanley later discovers Blanche’s past through a third party a person who travels to Laurel frequently. Stanley ends up confronting Blanche with the things she has struggled so hard to forget in the pretext that Blanche’s character flaws may compromise the lives of those living around her. Stanley’s attempts to expose Blanche can be seen to be very inhuman and cruel and a total disregard of sympathy. In the end, Stanley ends up raping Blanche a situation that sees her fall back into a nervous breakdown. Stanley goes further and has Blanche committed to a mental institution and Blanches words to the kindly doctor who moves her away In the institution seems to be the most touching to the audience. In the closing moment, Blanche utters to the doctor, "Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."