Streetcar Named Desire, Essay Example

As the play emerges there is a distinction of social class differences between Stella and Blanche. Stanley is very brutish and without chivalry which is neither what Blanch finds attractive in a man nor what she considers worthy for her sister’s company. She does not approve of her sister’s less than social class of living in New Orleans, Louisiana. Blanche is very vulnerable because she has lost the family estate Belle Reve and her job and was forced to come to New Orleans. Blanche lives in a superficious world of gowns and jewels and Stanley does not appreciate that at all. It is significant to note Stanley’s entrance with a package of meat because that denotes his primitive nature which is realistic of the people of New Orleans. New Orleans is full of a mixture of social classes meeting together and living conditions that are mixed with upper class and lower classed divisions. It is further realistic for a woman to take a drink of a wine or hard liquor in private then to compose herself again.

In Scene Two Blanche still has not become accustomed to the deplorable conditions that her sister lives amongst New Orleans. She does not like the sounds of the pianos, the sounds of the streetcars and the ugly scenes of Elysian Fields in New Orleans. Elysian Fields is one of the lower class areas of the city and still is today one of the high crime areas of New Orleans, Louisiana. Blanche further cannot appreciate the make-up construction of the ‘shot gun’ homes where there is no door separating one room from the other. Shot gun houses were typical during the times of Streetcar Named Desire because there was not much property available in New Orleans as compared to the high population thus homes were built very narrow in width and elongated in shot-gun style to save on space. Stella decides to take Blanche out for the night after Blanche’s relaxation bath so that she does not have to be privy to Stanley’s poker game in the apartment. It is very naturalistic to see home gambling in the homes of New Orleans people in those days and even common to today. Stanley feels that Blanche has swindled Stella out of her share of Bella Reve and all of her beautiful possession of evening gowns show for it.

“After reading some papers Blanche has given to him, Stanley realizes that Blanche is telling him the truth and the estate was lost to mortgage bankruptcy and not sold for profit.” (“A Streetcar Named Desire”). Stanley then slips and tells Blanche that Stella is pregnant with his child. This is also typical life of people in the south during this time. Blanche tries to justify the pregnancy by stating that the mixture of her aristocratic blood and Stanley’s immigrant blood may ensure a long heritage.

References

A Streetcar Named Desire (2009) Retrieved November 12, 2009 from, http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/streetcar/section2.rhtml