A Streetcar Named Desire: Main Characters



Blanche DuBois
(Cast by Vivien Leigh)

Blanche DuBois:  Neurotic central character as a high school English teacher from Laurel, Mississippi, moves to New Orleans to live with her younger sister named Stella and her husband called Stanley because she loses Belle Reve, the DuBois family home. She imagines living in the world of Old South chivalry and then causes her terrible destiny in the end. Actually, Blanche symbolizes the dead society of Old South and that old, intellectual romanticism.

Stanley Kowalski
(Cast by Marlon Brando)



Stanley Kowalski: The husband of Stella. Stanley, a Polish man, is heartlessly cruel to Blanche. He hates Blanche’s pretensions and wants to force her to face the music. He represents the new type of American in the New South: lacks education and deadly pursues success and wealth. 

Stella Kowalski
(Cast by Kim Hunter)

Stella Kowalski: Blanche’s younger sister who seems satisfied with her life as the wife of a New Orleans factory worker. She shares a robust sexual relationship with her husband―an animal, violent but renewing union.



Mitch

(Cast by Karl Malden)



Mitch: Stanley’s army friend, coworker, and poker buddy, who courts Blanche until he finds out that she lied to him about her sordid past.

Source from:

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/streetcar/characters.html
Picture from:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044081/

Tennessee Williams: Biography

Background of Tennessee Williams

 TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

1911-1983

Biography

Tennessee Williams is widely considered the greatest Southern playwright and one of the greatest playwrights in the history of American drama. Lots of his play, such as A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, are popular and widespread in the world.

 Tennessee Williams, born as Thomas Lanier Williams, was the son of Cornelius Williams, a shoe company executive, and Edwina, a Southern belle. Although his childhood in Mississippi was happy and carefree but after his family moved to the urban city, St. Louis, Missouri, the happiness of family was gone away. Notwithstanding, because of the unfortunate change in his life, Williams began to ponder what life means, to think the inward meaning of life.

Becoming an adult, Williams, who moved to New Orleans, started to use the nickname: Tennessee, which is given due to his southern background. In 1944, his first production: The Glass Menagerie brought him great success, followed by fame and wealth. Unfortunately, it was this success that made him difficult write so he went to Mexico to work on a play originally titled The Poker Night and eventually became one of his masterpieces, A Streetcar Named Desire.
 

After experiencing many tough time and success in life, in 1983, Williams died in New York and left those amazing works, which are considered to be the most wonderful plays among American history of drama.

Writing style

     Tennessee Williams, who used real life in the South as background in his plays, preferred to practice “poetic realism” in his plays. “Poetic realism,” a method to write play, uses the daily objects to symbolize some concepts or thoughts he wanted to express. In addition, Williams also portrayed the human emotions, especially brutality, violence, and sexual behavior. For example, in A Streetcar Named Desire, he arranged the male protagonist raped the female protagonist to show that New South substituted Old South.

Sources from:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/tennessee-williams/about-tennessee-williams/737//

http://www.gradesaver.com/author/tennessee-williams/

Pictures from:
http://www.corbisimages.com/images/BE084225.jpg?size=67&uid=053ddb67-560d-4004-af8b-227e6d24f3b1&uniqID=031a69cf-557c-4a7e-9879-216f8e25ecb0
http://image2.findagrave.com/photos250/photos/2005/153/1111_111781238299.jpg