Q. “Elysian Fields is a world filled with violence, in
which Blanche cannot survive.” In the light of this comment explore Williams’
dramatic presentation of violence in “A Streetcar Named Desire”. In your answer
you must consider relevant contextual factors.
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is a drama that mines the playwright’s own life. Blanche
represents some of the main features of his life such as; alcoholism, depression, thwarted desire, loneliness, and insanity.
Williams lived in an era unfriendly to homosexuality and had to cope at young
age of a troubling emotional phase.
Williams’s father was a heavy drinker. Her sister Rose
suffered from mental illness; she was institutionalized for the rest of her
life after an operation. The character of Blanche contains these recognizable
elements ; shown in Scene 1 with the example of “She carefully replaces the
bottle” and in Scene 9 with her hysterical outburst “Get out of here quick
before I start screaming fire”. Stanley Kowalski could be a representation of
William’s own father and other males who tormented Williams during his
childhood. Although he despised his father he grew up to appreciate him and
realised he had given him his tough survival instinct. The idea of
survival from tormenting men and life struggles could remind the reader of
Blanche, on the other hand Blanche could also mine her sister, Rose, as she
also suffered from mental illness.
Elysian Fields is
represented as a world of violence by the primitive life demonstrated
throughout the play and the aggressive language Stanley uses. The relationship
of Stella and Stanley is based on the primitive focus of nature. Stanley is
shown to be primitive and demonstrate intensity by acts like, “Catch!” or “I am
the King around here”. However the primitive personality of Stanley seems to be
the main thing that attracts Stella, this however is something Blanche has
never experienced before and therefore she is surviving this unusual circumstance.
Stanley is
the romantic idea of man untouched by civilization and its
effeminizing influences.
Blanche
has to survive in an environment in which her values and views are not the same
to the rest of the characters. Stanley is not able to perceive and fully
appreciate culture, “Such things as art-as poetry and music-such kinds of new
light have come into the world since then” this shows as if, “Stanley Kowalski,
survivor of the Stone Age!” is trapped in primitive, sexual, basic entertainment
and needs whilst Blanche has develop more mentally but she has no one to share
this with. Her knowledge only brings her further from the rest of the people.
Blanche has to cope with violent comments from Stanley such as “So I could
twist the broken end in your face!”, which even though they are in a mockery
tone they still impose the power Stanley has over Blanche.
Blanche had to survive worst circumstances
when she was in Belle Reve therefore her new condition in Elysian Fields should
be hard but at least she has her sister to rely on. Her experience in Belle
Reve has a huge impact on her to the point she can’t goes through re-memory. Death
is described as “burned like rubbish” –gruesome and powerful, this is a violent
perspective of death that makes death seem meaningless. In “I stayed and fought
for it, bled for it, almost died for it.” Blanche emphasises her self-pity with
the use of personal pronoun “I” and intensifies the sensation of her looking
like a victim. She had to go through this experience by herself and for this I
think that when she comes to Elysian Fields she is already emotionally touched
and she can’t stand more violence and brutality, her previous experience make
this new situation harder as she now has the world to her shoulders.
Blanche says that the only unforgivable
crime is deliberate cruelty. Blanche is dishonest but she never lies out of
malice. Her cruelty is unintentional often a misguided effort to please.
Stanley instead decides to end with a merciless attack against an already
emotional-beaten Blanche. He buys her a bus ticket for her to go, when he knows
she has nothing left and nowhere to go. Blanche is already having difficulty to
survive with her inner problems and she is in company so it will be worse if
she didn’t even have Stella or she had to go and find a way of living as she
has no money left.
Blanche is lost.
She seeks companionship and protection in the arms of strangers. She has never
recovered from her tragic and consuming love for her first husband. Blanche is in need of
a defender. She has to survive until she finds someone that will protect her
from mean people like Stanley and even more of herself. Mitch was thought to be
a plausible option but ends being to coward to cope with Blanche past.
Elysian
Fields is different from Belle Reve’s “big place with white columns” where
Blanche lived. She has to adapt to this new situation where there is not even a
room for her but a prepared couch and there is one bathroom for the three of
them. Williams shows flexibility in the set as he uses both the exterior and
interior of the home , this expresses the notion that the home is not a
domestic sanctuary. Characters leave and enter the apartment, often bringing
with them the problems they have in the larger environment. The case when this
is more effective is just before Stanley rapes Blanche, when the back wall of the apartment becomes
transparent to show the struggles occurring on the street, foreshadowing the
violation that is about to take place in the Kowalski’s’ home. At this point
talking in an animalistic tone, Blanche is taken over and her strives for
survival are conquered by the dominant and more powerful animal in the kingdom,
in this case Stanley.
At the end of the play, Blanche can’t fight for survival anymore and
retreats into her own private fantasy to partially shield herself from reality’s harsh blows. Blanche’s insanity emerges as she
retreats fully into herself, leaving the objective world behind in order to
avoid accepting reality. For her to escape she must come to perceive the
exterior world as that which she imagines in her head .Blanche’s final, deluded
happiness suggests that, to some extent, fantasy is a vital force at play in
every individual’s experience, despite reality’s inevitable triumph. Fantasy is
her mechanism of survival.
Elysian Fields
has a cultural clash this is relevant as this affects Blanche in a way that in
Scene 9 ,when the Mexican woman appears selling “flowers for the dead,” Blanche
reacts with horror because the woman announces Blanche’s fate.
Blanche can be seen ending by her dual flaws—her inability
to act appropriately on her desire and her desperate fear of human mortality.
Stella in order to survive chooses to leave
Belle Reve and start a new life with Stanley. Then at the end Stella chooses to
remain with Stanley and rely on, love and believe in her husband instead of her
sister. Stella is acting towards a guarantee of her own survival as Stanley
represents a more secure future than Blanche does. Blanche who had planned this
similarly, her way of surviving in Elysian Fields was to marry Mitch as this
will allow her to escape from destitution.
Men’s exploitation of Blanche’s sexuality has left her with a poor
reputation. Blanche sees marriage as her only possibility for survival. Stanley
takes her the only chance she has to survive by gossiping about her reputation
with Mitch, making him reject her. Her last chance is the millionaire Shep
Huntleigh—who might rescue her. Once again Stanley takes this away from her
both in her fantasy world and in the realist world. She has no escape now. As
Blanche cannot see her dependence on men, she has no realistic conception of
how to rescue herself. Her dependence on men is what is leading her to her downfall
rather than her salvation. By relying on men, Blanche puts her fate in the
hands of others.
Williams presents violence through drinking,
both Stanley and Blanche drink excessively at various points during the play.
Stanley’s drinking is social: he drinks with his friends at the bar, during
their poker games, and to celebrate the birth of his child. Blanche’s drinking,
on the other hand, is anti-social, and she tries to keep it a secret. She
drinks on the sly in order to withdraw from harsh reality. A state of drunken
stupor enables her to take a flight of imagination, such as concocting a
getaway with Shep Huntleigh. For both characters, drinking leads to destructive
behaviour: Stanley commits domestic violence, and Blanche deludes herself. Yet
Stanley is able to rebound from his drunken escapades, whereas alcohol augments
Blanche’s gradual departure from sanity.
In adaptations of the play in 1995 with
Jessica Lange as Blanche she seems nervous and trapped. Her acting portrays a
more delicate and fragile woman which leads to thinking she needs to survive
harder as she is weaker. Whilst in the adaptation in which Marlon Brando is
Stanley, the relationship between him and Blanche seem more sexual and
aggressive but Blanche seems stronger and up front making her seem secure and
more able to cope with everything.
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