Human lives spin out of control when they are frustrated, lonely, defeated and dependent; when desires are not fulfilled human being looses his/her self-control. Sexual politics comprises ideas and activities that are concerned with how power, status, ability are shared between man and woman and how they affect their relationships. In A Streetcar Named Desire sexual politics raises clash between men and women, reality and appearance, aristocrats and working classes, and native and immigrants. The reality of characters mainly Blanche, Stanley and Stella differs from their fantasy and the way of life. A close observation of their life style portrays their own psychology, mental dilemma and their uncontrolled behaviorism.
Throughout the play A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee William works on the outcomes of giving in to desire. We see the three main characters: Blanche, Stella and Stanley have no self-control and sell their souls to have their desires fulfilled. When the play begins, Blanche is in Elysian field, where she has come by the streetcar named desire. Symbolically this means that she has chosen the path of desire. To know Blanche's desires we must understand her reason for moving to New Orleans and the heart of her problems. She left her home because her life there was a miserable wreck. Her life is a lesson how tragic events in the past can ruin a person’s life. When she was young, her husband died; she also watched her parents and relatives die. She was forced to sell her ancestral home because she had to pay the funeral expenses. She was dismissed from the school, because of her relation with a seventeen years old student who reminded her of her late husband. After the death of her husband, she had huge void in her life to fill. She started to feel insecure, which shows women’s dependency on men. Blanche’s loss of innocence and her husband’s and family members’ deaths led her to a promiscuous life-style. Therefore she seeks substitute man (especially young man) for her dead husband. She thinks that she is still young and attractive. Blanche is always motivated by sexual desire. But, while desiring firmness and a fresh start in New Orleans, she behaves decently with Mitch and expects him as her security.
Stanley has been subjected to be ruled by desire. He is a common working class man, straight forward, cruel, vulgar, and animalistic, and he tolerates nothing but the truth. Stanley seeks truth, Stella hides from truth, and Blanche manipulates truth. (Free Essays)
Sexual tension builds between Stanley and Blanche from their first meeting. The conflict arises between Staley and Blanche, after several secrets about her past have been revealed. (Woolway) Later on Stanley forces Blanche on to a bed after commenting that she might not be “bad to interfere with.”(10.215) Unlike Blanche, though, Stanley gets away with his misdeeds. Stanley feels he needs to prove that Blanche is not what she seems. To this end, he destroys her dreams of becoming what she wants to be, and not what she was. By telling Stella and Mitch about her activities in the past, Stanley ruins Blanche's illusion. The breakdown of Blanche's psyche climaxes when Stanley rapes her, trying to prove to her that he always knew she was less than she appeared. So, Stanley’s qualities—variously illustrated as vitality, virility, heartiness, brutality, primitivism, lust for life, animalism—lead him over the course of the play into an unrelenting, unthinking assault on the already crumbling facade of Blanche’s world. (SparkNotes)
Stella unknowingly is also fascinated by her desires. The streetcar ravaged the family, but in the end the ridding of Blanche brought an equilibrium back that had been disrupted for those months. She is happy with her present condition that her reality goes on with animalistic point of view leaving out her gentry and aristocracy. While the desires of Stella and Stanley fit together, Blanche appears to be an intruder who disturbs and violates everything. Stanley and Stella were perfectly content with their lot in life before Blanche’s arrival. The relationship between Blanche and Stanley is high strung and very difficult. He resents that Blanche might convince her little sister of his worthlessness. He hates her because she makes him feel low. Blanche on the other hand sees his sexual attractiveness but resents the fact that he has made her sister a slave to his/her desire. It bothers her because she was once the one with the many lovers; things have changed and though his rudeness disgusts her she would gladly succumb to his crude ways.
Blanche’s current desire is the effect of her past troubled life, but the male dominated society is not favorable for Blanche. Even the readers find it difficult to feel sympathy for her till she is raped by Stanley and rejected by Mitch after her scandalous past is revealed by Stanley. Both Mitch and Stanley are immoral and they have sexual desire, but they are not punished like Blanche. Blanche’s mental stability is completely diminished because she is raped by a man who represents everything unacceptable to her. For this Blanche is emotionally repressed and at the end of the play she becomes the victim of her own passion, frustration and loneliness. Blanche’s final ruination is firstly due to her sexual yearning, secondly for her illusion, and finally for the sexual domination. When her past is revealed to Mitch, Blanche’s hope of being loved by Mitch and the security she expected is ruined. At one stage of the play Mitch rejected Blanche for her immoral past, but Mitch himself was immoral and he tried to seduce Blanche to satisfy his sexual desire, but this time Blanche resisted. Stanley was more immoral because he raped Blanche in the final part of the play, but he was leading a happy life. Stanley always dominated over Stella and Blanche. There was no place of Stella’s will in Stanley’s apartment. He always uses his physical prowess and rude behavior over Blanche and Stella. Thus Stella and Blanche were stroked and hurt by domination of man and sexual politics. Stella accepts the domination of Stanley over her in exchange of the fulfillment of her sexual desire. However, Blanche becomes the ultimate victim of his cruelty and sexual politics. This cruelty throws her to a further uncertain life.
Desire was the “rattle-trap streetcar” (SparkNotes) that brought her to her pitiful state in life. The true conflict for Blanche is trying to maintain both her sexual desires and her Old South romantic ideals. In contract, Stella has found happiness by submitting to her desires, but she also had to abandon her childhood notions of aristocratic romance. (kolin) Sexuality and death are predominant themes of the play and run together toward Blanche’s final destination and ruination. Stanley is the opposing force to Blanche’s struggles and world of illusions. To get rid of the problems and hardships in her life she retreats into her own separate world of illusion and lies.
Frustration, class-struggle, loneliness and the effects of rat-race mania of capitalism make the lives of the leading characters spin out of control in A Streetcar Named Desire. Blanche and Stanley stand in quite contrast to the American ideals—one represents nineteenth century aristocracy and the other twentieth century industrialization. Sexual politics is invoked in the structure of the play to illuminate the conflict that runs throughout the A Streetcar Named Desire.
Works Cited
"Free Essays - Tennessee Williams and A Streetcar Named Desire." 123HelpMe.com. 09 Apr
2010. <http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=6156>.
Kolin, Philip C. A Streetcar Named Desire. Tennessee Williams: A Guide to Research and
Performance. Ed. Philip C, Kolin. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998. 51-79.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on A Streetcar Named Desire.” SparkNotes LLC. 2003.
Source:
<http://www.SparkNotes.com/lit/streetcar/ (accessed June 21,2010)>
Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. Ed. E. Martin Browne. New York: Penguin
Books Ltd, 2000.
Woolway, Joanne. “A Streetcar Named Desire: Sex and violence in A Streetcar Named Desire.”
Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Detroit: Gale, 1998.
<http: //www.enotes.com/streetcar/sex-violance-streetcar-named-desire>.