53. Psychological drama of Tennessee Williams: A Streetcar named Desire

Tennessee Williams was one of the greatest American dramatists of the 20th century. Most of his plays take us to the southern states and show a confused society. In his works he exposes the degeneration of human feelings and relationships. His heroes suffer from broken families and they do not find their place in the society. They tend to be lonely and afraid of much that surrounds them. One of his most popular dramas was written in 1947, and it is called A Streetcar Named Desire.
            The drama is basically about a married couple -Stella and Stanley Kowalski- who are visited by Stella's older sister, Blanche. The drama shows the caustic feelings of these people putting Blance DuBois in the center. The drama tells the story of the pathetic mental and emotional demise of a determined, yet fragile, repressed  and delicate Southern lady born to a once-wealthy family of Mississippi planters. No doubt that the character of Blanche is the most complex one in the drama. She is truly a tragic heroine.
            First she is introduced as a symbol of innocence and chastity. She is aristocratic and intelligent, and sensitive and fragile at the same time, also beautiful and this delicate beauty has a moth-like appearance. But these positive characteristics are overshadowed by the fact that Blanche arrives to Elysian Fields, which is a poor section of New Orleans, on two streetcars, Desire and Cemeteries. These misterious expressions, which can be considered to be the main symbols of the play, suggest that something is is not clear around Blanhe or that something wrong will happen towards the end. Elysian Fields symbolizes paradise beyond death from ancient lore, Desire expresses Blanche's desire to be loved and Cemeteries represents her fear of death. Blanche represents a deep-seated attachment to the past. Her life is a lesson how tragic events events in the past can ruin a person's future. Her husband's death affects her the most. Allan comitted suicide and Blanche blaims herself.
                      Despite the effects that reached her in the past, when she arrives to Stella's little, and unconfortable flat, she tries to still seem to be well-mannered, educated, and attractive.

Stella's husband is a common working man who is simple, straight forward and honest. Stanley tolerates nothing but the truth. He is also cruel, vulgar, and animalistic, as Blance once says. He is the opposing force to Blanche's struggles and world of illusions. Mitch seems to be Blanche's perfect companion whom she is looking and also waiting for.
           Mitch embodies the fulfillment in love for Miss DuBois, as he calls her in the beginning. Blanche plays her role perfectly. Mitch believes her pure and innocent; he wants to marry her. Gradually, Blanche becomes dependent on him. But Stanley being a realist and seeing through Blanche's illusions, he defeats her opportunity to escape through Mitch. He even rapes her. It was not the actual rape that represents the causes for her following madness, but the fact that she was raped by a man who represented everything unacceptable to her.
         Blanche's tragedy is a tragedy of an individual caught between two worlds, the world of the past and the world of the present. She is unwilling to get rid of the past and unable to come to terms with the present. She cannot forget the the death of Allan, therefore she seeks  substitute men (especially young boys) for her dead husband. She is inable to face reality in her circumstances and in herself  because she still lives in the past. She thinks that she is still young and attractive, although she hates bright light because it  would reveal her.
         Blanche is an intelligent and sensitive woman who values literature and creativity of human imagination, but emotionally repressed, addicted to alcohol, succumbing to illusions, lies about her past, sexual aberrations, and madness. Her need to be special and loved originates from her loneliness and her failure with her relationships.
                A Streetcar Named Desire  is a psychological drama portraying neurotic people who are victims of their own passions, frustrations and loneliness. In the play Williams sympathizes depth characterization, he develops strong and interesting characters like Blanche and Stanley.
With this drama Tenessee Williams has created such an impressive and salutary story with which he revolutionized the American theatre, and wrote his name into the book of history of literature.

59.

Plot summary

Two migrant workers in California during the Great Depression – George Milton: small in stature, intelligent, and cynical, but caring; and Lennie Small: physically strong, but a mentally limited man – come to a ranch in Soledad, California to "work up a stake". They hope one day to fulfill their shared dream of settling down on their own piece of land. Lennie's part of the dream, which he never tires of hearing George describe, is merely to have soft rabbits on the farm, which he can pet. George protects Lennie from himself by telling him that if he gets into trouble he won't let him "tend them rabbits": they are fleeing from their previous employment in Weed; the childlike Lennie was run out of town, with George accompanying him, because Lennie's love of stroking soft things resulted in an accusation of attempted rape when he touched a young woman's dress.

At the ranch, the dream appears to become possible. Candy, the aged, one-handed ranch-hand, even offers to pitch in with Lennie and George so they can buy the farm by the end of the month. The dream crashes down when Lennie accidentally kills the young and attractive wife of Curley, the ranch owner's son, while trying to stroke her hair. A lynch mob led by Curley quickly gathers. George, realizing he is doomed to a life of loneliness and despair like the rest of the migrant workers, and wanting to spare Lennie a painful death at the hands of the vengeful and violent Curley, shoots Lennie in the back of the head before the mob can find him. The shot comes while Lennie is distracted by one last retelling of the dream

59. The Fool/Idiot Character in Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men.

Lennie Small – A developmentally disabled man who travels with George. There is irony and description in his last name: he is a very big man physically, but with the small dreams and attributes of a child. He dreams of "living off the fatta' the lan'" and being able to tend to rabbits, his obsession being soft bunnies, materials and cuddly animals. His possession of the mental ability of a child but the strength of a "bull", results in him being unable to control or judge even his own strength. This results in a series of accidental killings when they try to escape him (e.g. mice, his puppy, and eventually Curley's wife).

Lennie the Small is a very big man, a good idiot. People who surrounded them (his brother George – he is normal))) and Lennie) say that he is “a nice guy”. Those intellectuals rarely are good guys. Big, open, naïve, good child.

He is a gritesc figure of openess, og this naïve. He represents an average American person. Lennie dreams only about rabbit farm.

No mouse can survive in his hands. He is without reason to control, to develop any moral values, he is like big, kind animal.

Lennie likes the a wife of a leader. While petting her he killes her.

George kills Lennie. George considers Lennie as his own younger brother. So he kills him to avoid the terrible execution of lennie by those who surrounded them. He doesn’t want Lennie to suffer more.

No kindness, no innocent, no trust and openess may be human if it isn’t rude by human reason, the reason is a source of morality.