Values of The Old South in A Streetcar Named Desire Essay

A Streetcar Named Desire focuses on the values of the values of the old south, replaced during the 1940s by industry and efficiency. When A Streetcar Named Desire was published in 1946, it was straight after the war had finished, so a typical man in this New Orleans society would have gone to war and served his country well. Williams uses Stanley as an accurate representation of this common man, his chief amusements are gambling, bowling, sex and drinking. Tennessee Williams brings in his own past into the play, he was a heavy drinker himself like Stanley and who also lived in Mississippi. Williams also connected with the new American taste for realism that emerged following the Second World War.

Williams represents Stanley as a middle aged epitome of vital force. He was loyal to his friends, passionate to his wife and heartlessly cruel to Blanche. With his Polish ancestry, he represents the new heterogeneous America. He sees himself as a social pretension. Around 30 years of age, Stanley worked as an auto-parts salesman. Practically his forte and he had no patience for Blanches distortions of the truth. Williams represents Stanley as a very angry man, especially towards Blanche. `Thats how Ill clear the table! [He seizes her am.] Dont ever talk that way to me! PigPolackdisgusting----vulgar----greasy them kind of words have been on your tongue and your sisters too much around here! What do you two think you are? A pair of queens? Remember what Huey Long saidEvery Man is a King! And I am the king around here, so dont forget it! [He hurls a cup and saucer to the floor.] My place is cleared! You want me to clear your places? Williams presents Stanley as a leader, someone who seems themselves above other which is reflecting a typical man in that era.

Stanleys relationship towards Stella although aggressive after drinking shows the family guy Williams is trying to bring out in Stanley. `When we first met, me and you, you thought I was common. How right you were, baby. I was common as dirt. You showed me the snapshot of the place with the columns. Here Tennessee presents Stanley as a common man in his society.

Snow Falling on Cedars was always set shortly after the Second World War. Guterson represents Kabuo differently to how Williams represents Stanley. Kabuo Miyamoto lived on the small island in San Piedro with his family. Kabuo is a Japanese/American. Japanese Americans, like their fictional counterparts in Gutersons novel were often victims of prejudice during the Second World War. Many of the events and circumstances in Snow Falling on Cedars are based in reality

Guterson represents Kabuo as a victim of fate. He does not feel that his fate is entirely arbitrary, however a conscientious and pensive man, Kabuo felt guilty about killing the Germans in the Second World War, even though he was merely doing his duty as a soldier. He had chosen to serve his country out of desire to prove his loyalty. Everything was conjoined by mystery and fate, and in his darkened cell he meditated on this. . . . He would have to . . . accept that the mountain of his violent sins was too large to climb in this lifetime More than anyone else in the novel, Kabuo accepts that mystery and fate dictate the outcome of life. However, he also believes that individuals, straining and pushing at the shell of identity and distinctness, are responsible for their actions. Kabuo is a man who keeps himself to himself, a fisherman on a small island trying to re-gain land that was lost after he fought in battle for his country. Guterson represents him as a bit of an outcast from his society, they are quick to judge after the murder of Carl Heine because of his ethnicity.