A streetcar named desire

Description

1) As we will note in class, Stella must choose between Blanche and Stanley; she cannot have both.

Examine the implications of the choice that she makes.

What does each character have to offer her

and why does she choose as she does?

Most importantly, be sure to ask yourself: how does Williams seem to want us to evaluate Stella’s choice?

What are its moral implications?

This is what I started with:

Tennessee Williams’ Stella Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) is forced to choose between her sister and her husband. This choice is the ultimate turning point for Stella as a character who, up to this point, has served as an example of the understandable internalized misogyny that often stews within abusive relationships. Stella’s marriage to Stanley is her ticket into the stability of social acceptance. While she struggles with her husband’s abuse (which has now extended to her sister,) she is unable to remove herself from the cycle of abuse by choosing her sister over him. She is left clutching the baby as she sobs over the condemnation of herself, her sister, and now, her child. Over the course of the play, Williams asks us to both empathize and disagree with Stella and her relationship with Stanley. Williams asks us to both critique Stella’s internalized misogyny and empathize/sympathize with her decision to stay with Stanley.