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Summary A* AQA English Literature - A Streetcar Named Desire - essay on Stanley
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My 23/25 (A*) essay on = ‘Williams presents Stanley Kowalski as no more than a brutal thug.’ Examine this view.
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‘Williams presents Stanley Kowalski as no more than a brutal thug.’ Examine thisview. (23/25)
Williams 1947 tragedy, A Streetcar Named Desire, explores class and gender conflict. This is
exemplified by the male, working class, antagonist, Stanley Kowalski. He likely is inspired by
William's own father C.C, who was a heavy drinker, abusive, and gave him a tough survival
instinct. While Williams portrayal of Stanley on the surface is of a 'brutal thug' and by the end
it is hard for the audience to sympathise with him, an audience in 1947 may have found it
easier to empathise with him, as his brutal and violent behaviour likely stems from his
upbringing and the society which makes him a more complex character.
From the outset, Williams presents Stanley as hypermasculine - enjoying stereotypically
masculine activities like drinking; poker; fighting; and sex - especially in contrast to Blanche.
In turn, his hypermasculinity increases his violence, which was more normalised in 1940s
society than now. Not only is he verbally misogynistic and aggressive - exemplified by his
use of imperatives and repetitive questioning to Blanche about her marriage or Stella about
her sister, patronisingly asking 'Where are your white fox-pieces? … where are your pearls
and gold bracelets?" - but physically too. Similar to Fitzgerald's Tom Buchanan's "cruel
body", Stanley physically is able to "nearly" throw his two male friends off him, plus is
conventionally attractive and "strongly, compact built" - such as Elia Kazan's casting choice
of Marlon Brando - which makes audiences somewhat blinded to his violent behaviour. His
physicality instils a sense of confidence and power in him, which is continued through his
regularly occurring violent actions that are either implied, happen on stage, or are told by
other characters. Stanley treats inanimate objects with violence - like throwing the radio or
Blanche's possessions - with his objectification of women leading him to treat them violently
too, like the objects. At the start, his actions seemingly are playful, such as Stanley giving "a
loud whack of his hand on [Stella's] thigh” in front of his male friends. Yet, the undertone of
this is thuggish as it is to show off his sexual power to friends, and Stella does not
reciprocate. When he 'charges after Stella' and the audience hears the 'sound of a blow'
where he hits her off stage for no valid reason, which is the pivotal moment of his violent
behaviour. It foreshadows his most brutal act where he 'springs' at Blanche and rapes her
against her will, ignoring her cries that he stay away, using sex to assert dominance - which
would be shocking to audiences.
Coupled with his lower class, Blanche, unlike Stella who is attracted to his behaviour, sees
his actions as "primitive". Thus, Williams uses an animalistic semantic field when describing
Stanley, whose "animal joy in his being is implicit in all his movements and attitudes". The
repeated use of short, aggressive, fricative verbs, such as “hurls”, “jerks”, “shoves”,
“bellows”, “snatches'', “rips”, “seizes”, and “slams", reflect the animalistic and brutish force he
treats others with. This becomes predatory through how he uses his sexuality to enforce his
dominance. For instance, he objectifies and "sizes women up at a glance, with sexual
classifications, crude images flashing into his mind", suggesting he is assessing prey. This
creates the idea that he is the "king" and alpha male, the most dominant in power out of his
friends, with the beta males (Mitch, Pablo and Steve) remaining affectionate and loyal to him
despite his violence to themselves and especially women. Likewise, Williams creates a
cyclical structure as at the end of the play by having Stanley still face no consequences for
his actions, done to show how injustices in society still prevail.
Moreover, Williams presents Stanley as both emotionally and physically brutal and violent,
which is hard for the audience to be sympathetic to as his shocking behaviour often appears
to be without good reason.
However, while by the end of the play Williams portrays Kowalski as the main antagonist,
arguably he is a tragic villain - unintentionally acting antagonistically, then feeling apologetic
and "very, very ashamed of himself" about it. At the start of the play, Williams' portrayal of
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