Looking back at this play, I see how appropriately named it was! The entire play is focused on the characters' desires and the plot takes us on a little journey through them.
Stella’s desire is for Stanley, her husband. We get this in the first few lines of the play, when Stanley comes home carrying a package of meat and throws it to Stella. I think the meat symbolizes Stella’s physical desire for Stanley. The play also tells us right after the first line, “Stella comes out on the first floor landing, a gentle young woman, about twenty-five, and of a background obviously quite different from her husband’s”. Using this first clue and many others that follow it, we know that Stella has stepped down in society to be with Stanley and have her “desire”. We get the depth of Stella’s desire for Stanley when she sleeps with him hours, if not minutes, after he aggressively beats her!
Blanche’s desire is easily the most erratic of all in the story. Above all, she desires to be desired. This obsession gets her into huge trouble. Because of her desire, she loses her job, gets chased out of her hometown and has an absolutely filthy reputation. Her reputation is so bad; it even follows her to New Orleans. Her past desires (to be with many men to “help get rid of the loneliness”) cause her to lose her current desire (Mitch). Her desire is so strong, she can’t even learn from her previous mistakes. She still kisses the teenage paper delivery boy, when her previous desires for another teenage boy are what got her fired.
Finally, Stanley’s desires are that of a “red-blooded male”. Williams includes in describing Stanley, “Animal joy in his being is implicit in all his movements and attitudes. Since earliest manhood the center of his life has been pleasure with women, the giving and taking of it, not with weak indulgence, dependently, but with the power and pride of a richly feathered male bird among hens…He sizes women up at a glance, with sexual classifications, crude images flashing into his mind and determining the way he smiles at them”. He even goes so far as to rape Blanche when his wife is in labor! If he was willing to cheat on his wife with her mentally fragile sister, I think it can be assumed that he cheats on a regular basis, consumed by his “red-blooded” desires.
All in all, this story really disgusted me all the way through. The three main characters all acted like animals, having absolutely no sense of reason at all. For me, Stanley raping Blanche at the end was the last straw.
This was the most entertaining play we have read this entire semester. It actually was my favorite because I felt like I was reading a soap opera. The love game that Stanley and Stella play in their marriage was very unhealthy but kept me engaged to see how long she would put up with his aggression. Although it didn't surprise me too much that she stayed with him because most women do in an abusive relationship, it was still interesting.
ReplyDeleteI had never really associated the title word of "desire" with the characters. I just read the play through and tried to dissect the characters based on their surroundings and past experiences. You are spot on with the "erratic" desires of Blanche. I still tend to have great sympathy for the character of Blanche based on her past. Stanley is a misogynistic douche bag who should be thrown in jail and Stella is really just with him for the sex. I was upset at the end too when Stella sends Blanche away. I felt she should have stuck up for her sister. Ultimately, Blanche is the saddest of the bunch and I believe Stanley to be the craziest.
ReplyDeleteI also felt that this play was interesting because the more you read into the story you felt more of the emotions and desires that each of the characters had. You felt like you were involved with the story and knew a secret you could not share but you wanted to in order to protect certain characters. The story does a great job to create tension between Blanche, Stella and Stanley and you wonder what will happen between the three of them.
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