Desire in A Streetcar Named Desire Essay

For most, when the word desire is said, their minds almost instantly go towards anything that has to do with love, or sex. In Tennessee Williams play A Street Car Named Desire the word desire is expressed in both ways. Each character shows their primal selves and displays what desire can do to a person and what happens when one lets desire take over. It rules the behavior of the characters.

Blanche Dubois, Stellas older sister can be considered one of the most highly sensitive of the characters. She acts on desire through sex, which is also one of her motifs. Throughout the play Blanche brings out the sex motif by going out with one of Stanleys friends Mitch, or flirting with the imaginary paperboy. But with her past that still haunts her, she fails to stay with Mitch for very long. Another of Blanches motifs, colours is repetitive in her life and can explain her reactions to things such as light. Blanches immensely dark and sordid past with her ex husband Allan Grey could have led to being one of the reasons to her upset reactions whenever she was exposed to naked light. (Blanche: I bought this adorable little coloured paper lantern at a Chinese shop on Bourbon. Put it over the light bulb! Will you, please? I cant stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or vulgar action. Pg. 55) Blanche constantly tries to cover up how she cant stand naked light, her reasons being that light shows her age. Williams compares the bright light that she runs away from and the darkness that she constantly seeks. Still, the love for her ex husband slowly eats at her sanity as the play goes on. (He was a boy, just a boy, when I was a very young girl. When I was sixteen, I made the discoverylove. All at once and much, much too completely. It was like you suddenly turned a blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow, thats how it struck the world for me. Pg 95) However Blanches sexual desire appears when her ex husband commits suicide. (Blanche: Then I heard voices sayAllan! Allan! The Grey boy! Hed stuck the revolver into his mouth, and firedso that the back of his head had beenblown away! [She sways and covers her face.] It was becauseon the dance-floorunable to stop myselfId suddenly saidI saw! I know! You disgust me Pg. 960)

Stanley and Stella both share the same desire for each other. They both feel that they need each other. However they differ in how they need each other. Stella is completely and utterly addicted to her husband. Shes not afraid to admit that with out her husband she would be anything but sane. (Stella: When hes away I nearly go wild! And when he comes back I cry on his lap like a baby [She smiles to herself] Pg. 25) Stanley on the other hand is driven completely by his testosterone. His desire for Stella is by far the most sexual above all the characters. The presence of Stella gives him the look of a man. When he doesnt have her that disappears. He feels if he doesnt have her then it makes him less of a man. (Stanley: Stella! [There is a pause] My baby dolls left me! [He breaks into sobs. Then he goes to the phone and dials, still shuddering with sobs.] [Finally, Stanley stubbles half dressed out to the porch down the wooden steps to the pavement before the building. There he throw back his head like a baying hound and bellows his wifes name: Stella! Stella, sweetheart! Stella!] Stell-lahhhhh! Pg. 59) The two are dependent on each other which brings on Stellas decision at the end of the play to stay with her husband.

Desire plays a key role for the characters in A Streetcar Named Desire Though desire has a basic meaning; each character expresses the meaning in different ways. Some through happenings in their past, and some with whats happening in the present. This play brings out more of the meaning of desire and shows that its more complicated than what most think. Those who read it should come out with more knowledge of what desire does when one is affected by it.