150 words on characterisation for Street Car

In A Streetcar Named Desire Williams describes Blanch as being 'mothlike' which are known to be attracted by light. Additionally he describes Blanche as being very weary of her appearance when Blanche says "And turn that over-light off! Turn that off! I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare". This is a clear indication of the symbolism of light and connotes the meaning of light of numerous things in A Streetcar Named Desire. This first instance is the most important, and reveals Blanche’s fear of showing her leaving her insecure about her appearance. I used this information to influence my performance of subtext from where I used Blanches story of her husband and acted using it I then enclosed my movement and made myself feel small to show my own belittling as Blanche using quick movements to show my self-hate for my appearance these movements were almost "mothlike" too.

Characterisation 29/09/14 MG

Characterization

 

In today's lesson we looked further into the characterization of Stanley, Blanch and Stella from 'A streetcar named Desire'. We first did a frantic assembly warm up to get us up and moving ready to do some improvisation. We then created still images from scene 3 in the play where we see Stanley calling for Stella to come back after he had violently hit her, Michael and Hannah did a really good example of the idea that Stanley stood for his dominance and masculinity however still relied on Stella's presence to calm him and almost that he feels he would be destroyed without Stella being there with his and possibly feeling slightly dependent on Stanley much like a child is on their mother. Michael and Hannah's interpretation of this was Stella stood with her back towards Stanley while Stanley grabbed her hand looking hopeless. Me and James created a still images of Stella standing up while Stanley was on his knees with his head resting on Stella's stomach, this was our attempt to show the child like image of Stanley and Stella's relationship to hit on Stanley's childlike dependence on Stella like a mother and her son.

 

After doing this we continued on to pursue in doing some improvisation using the idea of Stanley and Stella's marriage. We looked at the scene 4 where Stella first brings up their marriage and how Stanley smashed light bulbs with the heel of her slipper. We were then asked to improvise Stella first telling Blanche that she was getting married. Personally James and I felt that we were to set this before Blanche had ever met Stanley in order to rid of tension and upset from the improvisation but to show the "sisterly love" between the two characters and show Blanches reaction to marriage on a whole and not just to Stanley being the groom. This is because we wanted to hit on Blanches past marriage to show her sorrow of marriage and show hoe her experiences have affected her overlook on marriage.  





How does Williams explore the idea of a tortured condition in the text

Williams explores the idea of torture through the text via the tension that he builds through climax of the text for example when we are continuously fed information about the characters, such as Blanche.


Blanche faces alcoholism, faded beauty, and lost status; she tries to cover up past both as a teacher and in her marriage, all while desperately trying to keep up the appearance and her own delusion that she’s still attractive to men. This shows a tortured soul where she is constantly lying to herself and attempting to convince herself that she still lives in her youth and beauty but is constantly reminded that she is no longer a youthful, beautiful girl anymore, this connotes depression and self concision. This mentally tortures Blanche.


The same is to say for Stanley. He also suffers with alcoholism as well as gambling problems and a very short temper. This shows elements of torture because after infesting his body with alcohol, Stanley's mind is in a poor state and he is blind from knowing what is acceptable and therefore isn't in control of his body therefore says some things he doesn't mean. However his temper isn't because of the alcohol all the time, but is because of his tortured mind.


Stella seems to me personally, as the character that is most tortured in the play, not because she is personally effected by her own choices like Blanch and Stanley, but is tortured by both characters while trying to juggle the two of them and calm the scene however is always effected because they fight over her for example Stanley's alcoholism and gambling problems led him to beat Stella during a game of poker where Stella felt very vulnerable and upset due to this. Also Blanche caused torture upon Stella in a slightly sneakier way. This is because she acts like she wants to be around Stella because she is tortured herself after the loss of the plantation however is causing Stella to be sad because she wants to be there for Blanche however with Blanche's selfish acts she feels again vulnerable and very controlled by how Blanche is feeling.