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Streetcar Named Desire

 

             Thomas Lanier Williams, known as Tennessee Williams, was a man of contradictions and clashing passions, so were his short fictions and plays. "A Street Car Named Desire" was one of his most successful and most performed plays. The title of the play has relations with the specific location; New Orleans is actually served by streetcars named "Desire" and "Cemetery". The action might be summed up as Blanche's (the main character of the play) emotional journey from desire to madness. The play is consisted of eleven scenes and scene by scene Blanche is approaching her doom.
             The play can be summarized as Blanche Du Bois visits her sister, cannot get on well with her sister Stella's husband Stanley, then falls in love with Stanley's best friend Mitch, tells about her past but all of the things she says are full of controversies, Stanley learns the truth, punishes her, and finally Blanche is taken away from them by the doctor. So focusing on the last parts of the play, when Blanche is leaving the house is fundamental. Because it symbolizes Blanche's fall, precipitated in part by her desperate flight from reality towards an illusionary refuge. And this event reminds that humans are emotional beings. Emotions are affecting every aspect of our lives, like in this play; they are invading every scene. All the characters of the play felt pride, guilt, love and hate, shame and sorrow. All their relationships will never be the same again. All these emotions reach their climax point as Blanche is leaving Kowalski family.
             The last scene starts while Stanley was winning the poker game. Stanley has been losing poker games in the previous scenes but at that time he was winning. The game was the symbol of his authority in the house, he has been losing since Blanche came. Long before, Blanche and Stanley had begun to see each other as a threat. As Londre explained " This conflict between Blanche and Stanley is an externalization of the conflict that goes on within Blanche between illusion and reality"(60).


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