Tennessee Williams and Gloria Naylor are both successful American novelists. Their respected works such as, A Streetcar Named Desire and The Women of Brewster Place are classic stories in part because of the authors abilities to instill their personal experiences and views to their fictional characters. Besides having in common being great writers; Williams and Naylor share the proficiency of using symbolism to increase the way the audience feels about their stories and the message they are trying to express.
Williams relies heavily on symbolism throughout, A Street Named Desire; one of the most prominent symbols is the use of music in his play. The Varsouviana tune and Blanches rendition of It Only a Paper Moon, are the most important songs in the entire play. The Varsouviana is the last song Blanche and her late husband Allen Grey were dancing to before he died. Blanche explains to Mitch:
We danced the Varsouviana! Suddenly in the middle of the dance the boy I had married broke away from me and ran out of the casino. A few moments later--a shot! (p. 96)
The man Blanche had married had killed himself because of her. Throughout the rest of the play the Varsouviana is symbolic because whenever it is playing, something bad is either happening or is going to happen to Blanche. Whenever the Varsouviana starts playing, it generates a sense of anxiety. The Varsouviana plays when Blanche runs into the bathroom crying because Stanley hands her ticket back to Laurel for her birthday. The song is playing when Mitch says to Blanche that he does not think he wants to marry her anymore. Even at the end of the play when Blanche is taken to a mental institution, the Varsouviana is playing in the distance.
Additionally, in Scene 7 Stanley is telling Stella how Blanche has been lying to them from the time she arrived, Blanche is in the bathtub singing a song. The song she is singing agrees totally with what Stanley is telling Stella. The song she is singing is:
Say, its only a paper moon, Sailing over a cardboard sea--But it wouldnt be make-believe, if you believed in me. Its a Barnum and Bailey world, just as phony as it can be. But it wouldnt be make-believe, if you believed in me. (99)
These lyrics illustrate Blanches approach to life, she truly believes that her lying is harmless and it is the only way to a better way of life. This song is symbolic of everything Stanley is saying; it is also symbolic of the world that she has created through her lies. Williams uses music in a fashion that greatly amplifies the effect it has on the audience by connecting it with the way that the characters are acting. Throughout the play, symbolism is used to increase the way that the audience feels about the characters and what is happening on stage. In the time that this play was in production certain acts and usage of language were not allowed, without symbolism in his play it is doubtful A Streetcar Named Desire would have been successful or fully understood.
In general Naylors novel, The Women of Brewster Place is about several women with different stories, yet the wall that blocked off Brewster Place tied their stories and lives together. The wall symbolizes the chauvinism that women are treated with and the racism of African-American people in the society of that time. In the novel, Ciel is one of the characters portrayed as a victim of the sexism of that time. A specific example of this is in her decision concerning her unborn baby. Her husband Eugene telling her [b]abies and bills thats all you are good for (94), which makes her feel pressured into having an abortion. He didnt want to have another mouth to feed. Although he never comes out and tells her to terminate her pregnancy, Ceil did it to please him. She lost her identity for him, she found it difficult to connect herself up again with her own world (95) her life revolved around what he wanted. Ceil lived for the click of the lock and his, Yo baby (91) as he came through the door when he would decide to re-enter her life. Ceil falls into the pattern of what is expected of women of this time. It was expected of women to seek out a husband and start a family. That was exactly what Ceil has done; she had found a man and started a family. This situation is an unfortunate pattern in the society of the time; women were expected to stay home and raise the family while the man worked. The relationships between a man and the women were not equal; they were significantly in the mans favor. A woman wasnt even considered whole without being married.
Racism is represented in the wall and the building that the women of Brewster Place reside in. Most of the residents that live in the broken down apartments are poor and African American. Gloria Naylor mentions that the closer the women were to the wall, the fewer choices they had in life. Mattie, who was the closest to wall, would probably spend the rest of her life in Brewster Place. In addition, Ceil hit rock bottom when her daughter Serena dies. In losing her child, Ceil felt that she had no reason to live and attempts to end the life; Mattie rocked her and bathed her until [h]er tears no longer fired within her, killing her internal organs with their steam (105). Ceil had held in all the pain that she had felt and it had been slowly killing her. Mattie helps her to cleanse herself of the pain she felt and Ciel learns how to go through the bad and good of whatever comes (31). Ceil has resolved her issues of sexism and racism that the wall has symbolized. All of the women in the story deal with these problems in their own way. The women of Brewster Place pulled together and supported each other through the worst times of their lives. Perhaps without Mattie, Ceil probably would not have lived through the death of her daughter. Each woman that lived in Brewster Place knows what it is to deal with sexism and racism and through the support of the other women they have survived.
In final analysis, both novels have well developed characters and exceptional writing, however the symbolism in Naylor and Williams writing is what makes their respected books classics novels instead of just good novels. Also, I am reminded of a picture hanging in my middle school principals office that said, Tell me, Ill Forget; Show me, Ill Remember; Involve me; Ill Understand. With regards to the novels, A Streetcar Named Desire and The Women of Brewster Place this adage holds very true. It would have been easy in Naylors novel for her to just plainly tell us racism and sexism is bad. Williams could have just stated that Blanche is disturbed and a liar. Of course this doesnt make for a good story or a good message for the reader. Symbolism makes a person think about the situation and involve themselves with it; the best answers in life are the ones that an individual comes to, not the answers told to him or her. Without symbolism in these novels I fear they would read as information packets instead of the insightful stories that are timeless.
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