How and Why Is the Grotesque Used in Tennessee Williams’ a Streetcar Named Desire Essay

by dint ofout this semester, we were introduced to varying degrees of literary fashions and themes. From the epiphanies discovered finished Ameri tolerate Realism, to the skepticism explored d atomic number 53 literary Modernism, to the fightings of social conformity and individualism approached by a Post-Modernistic America and its writers. We move up had the nifty opportunity of cosmos exposed to individuals who questi nonp atomic number 18ild and pushed the jump offaries of creativeness and expression. Tennessee Williams was an author and unravelwright who balanced the enigmatic, macabre, and often cruel disintegration of his casefuls with a poetical grace.He became the keystone of a style that is kn aver as sulfurern Gothic. A aerial tram delegacy Named Desire became the quintessential formulation of the tremendous done the unraveling of the Old South. More specific each(prenominal)y, his themes on the conflict amongst the sensitive, non-conformist individu al against conventional society, the disintegration of the gray woman, and the divergence in the midst of southern gentiles and northerly brutality to which all told of Williams char spellers contributed to in almost degree.The grievous style of literature supplies the contributor with a historical as sum up up as social perspective. This provides a metaphoric reference to the dying South and the agitate to exist against the progressive i get aways of the North, all the while, pregnant with trying to keep the southerly individuation and dignity int tour. It is evoked that A parking grant description (of the grotesque) has to do with causation Confederate grotesque is often said to be the literary aftermath of historical chance. (Presley 37).If we arrive into account the surrounding setting of the play, a two-story corner building on a street in fresh siege of Orleans which is named Elysian palm and runs amidst the L & N tracks and the river (Elysian Fields is a New Orleans street at the northerly tip of the French Quarter, amidst the Louisville & Nashville railroad tracks and the disseminated multiple sclerosis River. In Greek mythology the Elysian Fields ar the abode of the b littleed in the after feeling. ) The section is poor but, un manage match sections in other Ameri heavy deal cities, it has a raffish enrapture (Klinkowitz & Wallace 2187), the endorser is thrust into the ensuing chaos in the lead any of the characters be even introduced. Williams was truly particular c overleaply each particular proposition with regards to the style in which he was writing. The dramatic play is not nevertheless a pass of the surroundings, but is a symbiotic passage of the daily lives that exist at bottom the grotesque. The disorders are threef gray-headed narcissism, familial conflict, and dream- kindred confusion (Presley 37).The southerly Gothic, grotesque style of writing can best be characterized by the gruelling ability of an author to evoke feelings of horror while contrarily evoking feelings of compassion among his/her hearing as healthful as amongst the characters inside the dissemble. These emotions are presented and contained within, what seems to be, a woolly individual. This character whitethorn also boast traits of incontinence referable to physical or mental incapability. Literature of the grotesque, according to the authoress, is marvellous by a moral or theological vision not commonly associated with realistic works.Freaks appear in her fiction, she said, to glow quite simply what man is like without God (Presley 38). In keeping with the grotesque, Williams A Streetcar Named Desire stretched the boundaries of this theme through the representation of the disintegration of the southern woman. By exploring the torrid longing of his character, Blanche Dubois, and her desires and fears. Grotesque writers are faced with the military man beingsly concern that they live in an age w hose distortions function as indicators of how far man has drifted from his true image as a creature of God.In this vein, Williams explores the turpitude of mankind, along with its difficulties in reconciling its primal nature with the rules of society Blanches charm and beauty is overridden by her alcoholism, nymphomania, and general drunken reveler (Presley, 1). Blanche DuBois provided the extreme case of what it is like to omit your egotism. Blanche was Deceptive, dishonest, fraudulent, permanently flawed, ineffective to face reality, Blanche is for all that thoroughly capable of commanding reference compassion, for her struggle and the crushing defeat she endures postulate the magnitude of tragedy.The inevitability of her doom, her refusal to back mass in the face of it, and the essential gentleman of the forces that drive her to it are the very fondness of tragedy, No matter what evil she may have done, nor what villainies practiced, she is a human being trapped by t he fates, making a human fight to escape and to populate with some shred of human dignity, in full recognition of her own dim human weaknesses and increasing absence of trust (Crandell 93). The obscure relevance to her deceptions are only a portion of why Blanche represents the grotesque.Her extremity to deposit to the old southern ways (with a devastation grip) allows her to cling to her own sanity. She exudes narcissism to the fullest extent, but is unable to see the damage that it is causing to herself and the sight around her. In the very firstborn scene, Blanche describes the acquittance of Belle Reve. She goes on to embellish the loss as a personal relegate with death, to which she is the only check to and the only effected party I, I, I, took the blows in my face and my eubstance All of those deaths The long parade to the necropolis Father, mother Margaret, that dreadful waySo big with it, it couldnt be put in a coffin only when I had to be burned like rubbish. And, oh, what gorgeous boxes they packed them out(predicate) in Unless you were in that location at the get it on when they cried out, Hold me youd never suspicious there was the struggle for breath and bleeding. You didnt dream, but I saw see Saw. (Williams 2193). This description was a give out cry for compassion or an endeavour to restore the relationship with Stella, but through a premeditated state of self preservation. The grotesque narcissism with which she approaches the loss of the demesne and their relatives only happened to her.It is this over dramatic intelligence that reinforces the authors emphasis on the southern Gothic or grotesque style likely throughout his play. The end of the loss of Belle Reve, her husbands suicide, and, later, her shift from her job, could have contributed to her current state. But it in the end, she chose not to face her demons, she opted to hide fag end the ruse of entitlement associated with old southern golf-club that pr oved to be her ultimate demise. If there is any character in late dramatic literature whose identity is bound up in such fantasies and sees erself as unique, special and entitled, it is Blanche DuBois, whose very name conjures up images of French, chivalric romances.Further more than than, it is clear that she identifies with the role of the southern Belle and, in fact, retreats to memories of herself as gray Belle when confronted with death and trauma. Ironically, from Blanches point of view, although the Confederate Belle is essentially superior, she is also, simultaneously, a vulnerable, even fragile figure, in emergency of constant attention and care, aquiline on others. (Ribkoff & Tyndall 327). The reason why the grotesque is so important to the come devour of the Southern woman, and this particular character, is because there is this actualization that there are no felicitous endings. Blanche is happy to wallow in her own self destructions and with this she is l ibel to hire down everyone within her distinct vicinity. Blanches character is deprived of the one thing that she longs for which is love and by reaching for the facade of the Southern Belle, she does more damage because she is the complete antithesis of the Southern Belle. in that location is also a solidifying of symbolism associated with Blanches decline. Throughout her hapless time at her infants apartment, it is evident that she was taking a lot of baths through the progression of the story. As more information gets divulged about what really happened in her past, it is almost as if she is trying to offer that she is a Southern Belle. She is trying to convince herself that she is still clean or that she can wash away her past through her frequent bathing. There is also the give up of animated.Blanche does her best to conceal herself from the light of reality by placing paper lanterns over lamps to lead the light So, too, in A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche is descri bed (in the same stage focus ) as both attracted to and repulsed by light. On the one hand, she is described as moth-like in appearance. Comparable to the moth, she is strangely attracted to that which has the power to land her. On the other hand, her delicate beauty must avoid a fortified light.To avoid it, she dresses naked light bulbs in paper lanterns, and when she goes out, with Mitch for example, it is always at night. (Crandall 95). This pertains to her willingness to escape reality and is yet some other way that Williams exhibits the grotesque through his writing. In further examination of Blanche, her dependency on men is another portrayal of the grotesque. She is eer looking for and acquiring the affections of men and seems to viands upon the generous nature of Mitch, Stanleys friend. present we see the grotesque outlined in the form of fe priapic dependence on the male figures in their lives. At one point, Blanche rejects the union of her sister with that of the ab usive Stanley Kowalski. She fantasizes about an alternative animation with the financial shop from Shep Huntleigh, but this still emphasizes a need for the support to exist from a male figure. level though this wouldnt be a stable situation for Stella, this would guiltless her from her dependency on Stanley.This reiterates the progression from the old to the new south, but isnt a source of stability for Stella. She still postulate to rely on Stanley and in doing so we see the indignity of the human spirit due to sacrifice. It is also a theme of Williams that the removal of the simply country life, and into the throngs of a sprightly city, create the setting for the grotesque situations that these characters call up themselves in. Williams thought that in moving away from the country life, we are separating ourselves further from the life that God had intended us to live.There is a quiet simplicity that is associated with works the land in the country and in moving to the tra ppings of a thumping city, there is room for trouble. This is also apparent through the loss of Belle Reve. When Blanche falls into misfortune and loses the house, she is forced into a life of less prestige and honor. She loses her job as a teacher due to moral discrepancies, she is called on at the hotel that she is staying at by many a(prenominal) men, and she is forced to move in with her sister in New Orleans.This transition represents a removal of all that is decent and good with humanity and confines us to the fix quarters of a city where we lose ourselves. Stanley Kowalskis character impresses upon the reader an animalistic quality that can only be implied to represent the conflict of the divergence between southern gentiles and northern brutality. As much as Blanche is the representative of dreams, Stanley is the emissary of everyday reality. His Napoleonic Code and the State of atomic number 57 are the realistic counterparts to Blanches more ephemeral Belle Reve.Whereas Blanche values civilization and its refinements-art, poetry, and music-Stanley indulges in more primitive pleasures-eating (bringing home warmheartedness from the kill) drinking, to the point of intoxication and sleeping with women. He knows what his pleasures are and indulges them, often to excess. He enjoys life to the fullest-be comfortable is his motto. In his drunken paroxysms, he easily forgets himself, and becomes one with his buddies. He is, for the most part, spontaneous and unaffected (Crandall 97).In the orgasm of the play, we bear witness to Stanleys submission to the atavistic urges and northern brutality by the violation of Blanche. As the story progresses, Mitch (Stanleys friend) exhibits how the loss of the Southern Gentile adds to the grotesque setting with which all of the characters exist in. At the end of the play, we are made aware that Blanche is being perpetrate to an insane asylum. As the Doctor starts to take Blanche away, Mitch had an opportunity to i ntervene, but he didnt.He felt a great deal of sympathy for Blanche, but chose to not act on those feelings and instead Blanche is committed. The reason that this is such an important example of the loss of the Southern gentile was because he had the opportunity to act and didnt step up to correspond Blanche. Southern gentiles are all about honor and dignity. With the loss of these important qualities within him, he has just let Blanche move over to the darkness that has shrouded her since she arrived at Stellas apartment.Even though Blanche didnt see the grinder within Mitch, they had a bond between them. They were both looking for love and for soulfulness to take care of them. With him not attack to her rescue, the true Mitch is presented-a person who is devoid of the valorousness that Blanche so desperately needed. On the conflict between the sensitive, non-conformist individual against conventional society, we have to re-examine Blanche Dubois. From the beginning of the pl ay, we are well aware of Blanches sensitive, non-conformist characteristics.She is someone who was unwilled to uphold he civilities that should exist within each person. In her having tarnishing relations with a pupil of hers, she sacrifices the only thing that she had left- her dignity. up to now defensive Blanche becomes, from the bite she enters the stage until the moment she leaves it, she is in search of direction and empathy or kindness of others in order to work through the traumas of the past and present. Ultimately, this search for ground is he main reason she comes to New Orleans and not simply for a place to stay (Ribkoff & Tyndall 327).The climax of the grotesque within this play seems to come as a result of Blanches sensitive, non-conformist attitude towards life. Her inability to accept tariff for her current situation is the catalyst to the way that Stanley shows no tolerance for her. Stanleys brutalities, along with his intolerance for Blanches current state of mind, clash to create the ultimately grotesque act of rape later in the play. Many critics believe Stanleys rape of Blanche precipitates her autumn into madness.According to Mary Ann Corrigan, this descent is part of the overall trajectory of the play in each of the plays 11 scenes Blanche moves inexorably closer to the disintegration of her mind and the summarise rejection of reality (Humanit 334). After the disintegration of the world that Williams created in A Streetcar Named Desire, we are left with the overwhelming themes of the struggle for human affection, dignity, and resolve. Through this in-depth dissection of the characters, plot, and settings, emerge the themes that exemplify the Southern Gothic/grotesque style of writing.