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Monthly Archive for September, 2021

The play A Streetcar Named Desire thrusts the audience into a dynamic of individuals between one who wears a mask versus one who doesn’t. Stanley feels the need to constantly try to call out Blanche for being a con artist; however, the underlying story is just a balance of dominance. The audience is made aware […]

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Disclaimer: This post goes into the following subjects: Abuse, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), rape, substance abuse, and suicide. If these topics make you uncomfortable, please do not read this, as your mental health is far more important than you reacting to this blog post. Also, let me stress that I […]

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The main plot to Tennesee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire follows a young couple living in New Orleans as the wife, Stella’s, glamorous and erratic sister stays with them. Blanche, the visiting sister, is initially perceived as flighty and snobby. However, once she reveals more of herself ,we see that her vanity is a show to […]

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A Streetcar Named Desire started off benignly. Blanche, whom we later find out is Stella’s sister, tries to get off the streetcar to find her sister, Stella’s, place. What she ends up finding shocks her and changes her life forever. I will mostly talk about the role Stanley’s abusive behavior defines this story. Stanley’s true […]

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The play A Streetcar Named Desire takes place in New Orleans, following Stanley, his wife Stella, and his sister-in-law, Blanche.  While several conflict points appear throughout the story, they all seemed to revolve around the character Blanche. This character on the basic level is very selfish.  Her drive is to get what she wants, which, often times, […]

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The depths of Blanche

At first, Blanche seems crude and mean as she is treating her sister, Stella, horridly. As the story progresses she becomes more bearable, but the readers start to understand Blanche is traumatized. Though this does not justify her behavior, it is good to note in understanding her. Stella talks about how badly Blanche was treated […]

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The first scene does a lot to establish the way that appearances, money, and status are important elements to the characters throughout the play. The most obvious example is Blanche, but Stella had her moments as well. From the first introduction of Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire, it says that “[Stella comes out on the […]

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The themes of desire and violence are not only prevalent throughout Tennessee Williams’s play, A Streetcar Named Desire but they are intertwined in a way that foreshadows the events that we see in the last few scenes of the play.  These two themes come together in the first Scene when Blanche DuBois is explaining the […]

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The roles of fantasy and reality play important roles in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. Both Blanche and her younger sister Stella have constructed fantasies to escape the harsh reality of their lives. Blanche is living with the guilt of her husband’s suicide and all the other things she’s done wrong. She is attempting to […]

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When reading A Streetcar Named Desire, something that stood out to me was the usage and placement within the stage directions for musical cues, as well as the type of music to be used for the scene. I went back through the book several times to count and infer where elements of the score were […]

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The patriarchal New Orleans society in the 1980s reflected in Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening, puts many limitations on individuality. Verbal, creative, and sexual self-expression were not socially accepted freedoms that the women of that time could enjoy. However, this is precisely what the protagonist of Chopin’s novel, Edna Pontellier, strives for. Edna had many awakenings […]

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The Awakening is a story of a housewife in Louisiana who laments her lot in life in an unfulfilling marriage and finding ways to rebel against the society that she lives in. For women, they don’t have the autonomy women of the 21st century enjoy. They’re not allowed to own property, not allowed to live […]

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Kate Chopin’s The Awakening is quite a moving book. It is a rebellion towards how women were treated and seen during this time period. It teaches that women are more than property to own. Women are human beings, with a heart and soul, not just a body to control. The main character Edna shows every last bit […]

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Throughout the course of the narrative, Edna is faced with opposition that should not exist. Her yearning for a broader life is not a crime, yet wanting that level of freedom ultimately cannot be met and she takes her own life. Society, principally during the time period that the book takes place in, was unjust in its […]

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Symbolism of the Moon

While I was reading The Awakening, it became apparent to me that the moon holds great significance to our main protagonist, Edna. The symbolism of its appearance in the book is profound and plays a huge role in defining Edna’s character. It speaks to her ever-evolving personality and showcases how influential we are over our own […]

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One thing I found immediately interesting at the start of The Awakening was that Kate Chopin began the novel through the point of view of Mr. Pontellier, Edna’s husband, rather than beginning with Edna herself. Firstly, Chopin sets the tone of the novel with her humorous style of writing as well as the multi-cultural setting, […]

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Edna’s Flight for Freedom

The Awakening, a novel by Kate Chopin, depicts the role of women in New Orleans society in the late 1890s by following Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother who no longer wants to live in the constraints that society has given her. From the beginning to the end of the novel Chopin uses an […]

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The Awakening follows the story of Edna Pontellier and her ever-changing journey.  At first glance, this book comes across as a love story – which it most definitely is – but it also comes across as a journey of self-identity.  Throughout the entire story, Edna is struggling and trying to figure out where she fits […]

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In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, readers are introduced to the harsh, melancholic reality of Mrs. Pontellier’s life in her marriage. Each interaction between them in the first few chapters demonstrates the way that Mr. Pontellier merely views his wife, Edna, as an accessory to his own life rather than a distinct person with her own desires and […]

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The Awakening

The Awakening is set during Victorian-era New Orleans and in Grand Isle, where the Pontellier family stays for the summer. Going into this book I had no idea what it would be about, so I was pleasantly surprised and shocked to see it was about a woman having an affair. I was excited by this because […]

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