Zeno's Paradox: "A Streetcar Named Desire"

Zeno's Paradox

September 11, 2003 - "A Streetcar Named Desire"

Last night, I finished my first reading for my first playwriting course. The play - "A Streetcar Named Desire".

"A Streetcar Named Desire" reminded much of a Sam Sheppard play I saw at Princeton around four years ago, "Fool for Love". It seemed to have the same "flavor" and tackle the same types of emotions and issues pertaining to romantic relationships and behavior. I thought that the plot moved along quite well (after all, I managed to finish reading it despite being tired late last night). From what I've managed to read pertaining to the classic three-act progression of plays, this one followed it to the letter. The first act seemed to end at the point where Blanche goes out with Mitch, the second act ended at the point where Stanley tells Stella of Blanche's true recent history and the climax of the play was at the point where Stanley confronts and violates Blanche. (Pardon me if this seems elementary -- I'm new to all this.) The loose ends are tied up as Blanche is sent to a mental institute.

Thoughts on the plot: The most concrete thought that I have is the irony toward the end of the play. Throughout the play, Blanche is deceiving herself and others with her lies and misrepresentations. After the encounter, she comes to terms with the lies and tells Stella the truth about Stanley. Her reward for this -Stella thinks that she is still self-delusional and she gets carted off to the looney bin. I thought that was a particularly cruel thing to do to a character. (Though I don't know if it is cruel as the treatment the Madelyne Pryor character received at the hands of the X-Men writers immediately following the return of Jean. Don't know why I'm mentioning this...) I thought that the rest of the plot did little to advance any set of events, but rather it was more of a fleshing out of the characters. Stuff happened, but it seemed relatively unimportant compared to Stanley and Blanche's encounter late in the play.

Thoughts on characters...

Stella: Stella seems to be the typical head in the clouds "everything is going to be alright" idealist. I found her character to be pretty shallow and uninteresting. While the play focuses on Blanche's illusions, I think that Stella was just as misleading to herself and others regarding how things really were with her. Perhaps she honestly accepted that she was no longer part of an "Old South" aristocratic family, but I doubt it. When you can do nothing to change a bad situation, convincing yourself that the situation is quite alright may be the next best thing.

Stanley: I really identified with Stanley. Here's this guy who has married above his station and knows it. His wife's sister arrives and reminds him and his wife about the initial social disparity between the two. He is an honest worker and does what he can to enjoy his station in life. He loves his wife, but he often loses control. Blanche categorizes him as something out of the Stone Age and I think that is partially right. He realizes his shortcomings and is trying to improve himself. However, something primal does remain as seen in his encounter with Blanche. After much poking and prodding from Blanche, Stanley tries to get rid of her in a civilized manner -- purchasing her a train ticket out of town. When this fails, his baser instincts are bared and he deals with her in a base fashion. He destroys her completely by tearing down her illusions and then reinforces the reality of Blanche's character by violating her. Blanche cannot survive this and Stanley knows this. Stanley seems to be a guy wanting to be civilized, but unable to remain so when threatened.

Blanche: I think Blanche is much like her sister by creating illusions to convince herself that her situation is better than it is. I don't see Blanche as a deceitful or mean person, just one whose self-defense mechanisms are doing her and the people around her more harm than good. When these defenses are overcome, she doesn't know how to deal with life and abdicates control. Blanche's largest character flaw is being unable to see the gulf between where she is in life and where she thinks she should be. Her self-illusion only serves to illustrate and agitate the self-illusions that others have erected, such as that of her sister and Stanley.

Mitch: Mitch was a prop. I found him without any value other than to illustrate parts of Blanche's character.

Eunice and Steve: I think that these two characters were put in place to illustrate the type of family Stella and Stanley strived to be. There were differences between the two but they always made up. With Blanche arriving and showing Stanley that while he may be a Steve, but Stella is not a Eunice, the conflict of the play was established.

Ok, I need to wrap this up. Those are my thoughts for now. I'll append more if any new ones come to me.

Posted by br284 at 08:13 AM

Trackbacks

Comments

eesh. not that i've read it in a few years, but a few comments...

1) fool for love absolutely blew and i still feel bad for taking you to see it. except of course if you liked it and then i feel even worse about it. i can't quite remember if it was the play or just the production that blew, but blew it did.

2) agh, on the rest of your entry. ever hear of pride and self-delusion. blanche can't let stella know just how bad it's gotten because not only does it destroy blanche's illusions of herself but also stella's illusions of her sister and of herself. stella ultimately commits blanche rather than let blanche's madness and stanley's infidelity and violence destroy her pretend happy marriage. if stella's to maintain her own illusions of happiness, she's got to commit her sister rather than admit what's happened. i don't think it's that stella's a "shallow everything's going to be all right idealist." it's more that she's trying desperately to believe that everything will be all right and will do anything to maintain that illusion - even commit her own sister. she chooses fake stability (and i think she was pregnant by the end, too, so a father for her baby, as well) over "betraying" her scary husband for the sake of her falling-apart sister.

beyond that (and i may be mixing up the movie with the play at this point) stanley's buying the train ticket doesn't strike my memory as being all that civilized. i seem to remember him shoving it at her with no warning to her at least (though stella may have known). that's not really all that important though.

generally, i understand your sympathies with stanley, a blue collar man stuck in a fake-blue blood world, but i think you need a bit more sympathy for the female characters, too. these are not your modern wilting violets. there's a lot more going on i think.

you should rent the movie if you get a chance. it's not quite the same as the play for a couple of reasons (chief among them the 1950s censorship people) but it's got some good interpretations. plus, with vivien leigh as blanche, it's sort of fun to see what happened to scarlett o'hara once rhett stopped giving a damn. plus, it singlehandedly changed men's fashion forever, with marlon brando in his wife beater, mens' undershirt sales skyrocketed in the 1950s.

3) i fixed the email problem and everything seems to be ok now. ttyl...

Posted by ... on September 11, 2003 03:33 PM

I agree with you regarding Stella. I guess I mislabeled her when I wrote idealist. I should have qualified it as a "wannabe" idealist. Again see my notes above re: Stella's delusion. Now that I think about it, Stella's choice to commit Blanche seems to be more sinister than any of Blanche's lies and illusions. I guess the question now is who was more selfish? Blanche for wanting to impose herself on her sister or her sister for taking the actions she did to maintain her fantasy? Blanche's imposition was based on need - can Stella say the same? Was the only alternative available to be rid of Blanche was to commit her? I don't know.

The movie is on my NetFlix queue, so I should get it sometime next week.

Posted by Chris on September 11, 2003 04:04 PM