Character Analysis (AQA A-Level English Literature A): Revision Notes

Character analysis

Understanding characters in A Streetcar Named Desire

Tennessee Williams crafts his characters as symbolic constructs that represent broader social ideas and tensions in post-war American society. Each character embodies specific values and attitudes that were prevalent during the period, making their interactions a commentary on contemporary social debates. Understanding how characters function symbolically is essential for analysing the play effectively.

The differences between characters reflect important conflicts of the era, including tensions between old and new social orders, traditional femininity versus modern masculinity, and the struggle between illusion and reality. Therefore, studying each character individually whilst also comparing and contrasting them with others provides deeper insight into Williams's thematic concerns.

Williams's characterisation strategies

Williams employs several key dramatic techniques to establish and develop his characters throughout the play. Understanding these methods helps you analyse how meaning is created through theatrical presentation rather than just dialogue.

The playwright uses multiple layers of characterisation:

• Initial establishment: How characters first appear and are introduced to the audience
• Physical presentation: Costume, appearance and stage directions that suggest character traits
• Actions and motivations: What characters do and why they do it
• Dialogue and thought: What characters say and think, revealing their inner world
• Interactions: How characters behave with others, showing power dynamics
• Others' perceptions: What other characters say and think about them, providing alternative viewpoints

Examiner guidance

In your examination responses, you must demonstrate understanding that characters are deliberate artistic creations serving specific dramatic functions. Williams has consciously crafted these individuals to perform particular roles within the play's structure and thematic framework.

When analysing characters, consider Williams's choices in presenting them. For instance, examine why he depicts Blanche in specific ways through costume, lighting and music. Study her mannerisms and speech patterns alongside her actual words. Exploring dramatic form is crucial because this is a play intended for performance, not just a text to read.

Blanche DuBois

Introduction and appearance

Blanche arrives in New Orleans as Stella's older sister, approximately thirty years of age. She makes her first appearance wearing a white dress and appears distinctly out of place in the run-down neighbourhood where Stella lives with Stanley. This immediate visual contrast establishes her as an outsider who does not belong in this rough, working-class environment.

Williams's stage directions emphasise that Blanche is a delicate beauty who must avoid strong light. There is something about her that suggests a moth, fragile and drawn towards potentially destructive flames. This moth imagery becomes significant throughout the play, foreshadowing her tragic fate and her inability to survive in harsh conditions.

Complex and contradictory nature

Blanche emerges as one of Williams's most psychologically complex creations, full of contradictions that make her simultaneously sympathetic and problematic. The audience quickly becomes aware of her class snobbery, particularly evident in her interactions with Eunice and her immediate negative reaction to Stanley's working-class manner.

She demonstrates problematic behaviour from early in the play:

• Her heavy drinking suggests she uses alcohol to escape reality and perhaps to numb guilt about her past
• She takes excessively long baths, symbolically attempting to wash away guilt and past mistakes
• She displays overt sexuality despite her delicate, feminine appearance and mannerisms, creating a jarring contrast

Blanche's traumatic past

Blanche's present behaviour stems directly from traumatic experiences that haunt her throughout the play. As a young woman, she married a man she later discovered was homosexual. The play suggests that she bears responsibility for his suicide after expressing her disgust at discovering his sexuality. She heard the polka music playing when he took his own life, and this same music returns whenever she experiences extreme stress, demonstrating how the past intrudes upon her present consciousness.

Following her husband's death, Blanche experienced a series of family deaths at Belle Reve, the family plantation. These losses illustrate what Williams presents as the brutality and inevitability of mortality. The loss of Belle Reve represents not just financial ruin but the destruction of her entire social world and identity.

Attempts to alleviate guilt

In efforts to ease the guilt surrounding her husband's suicide, Blanche has engaged in numerous sexual encounters with young men who remind her of her deceased husband. This behaviour could be interpreted as her attempting to fill the emotional void created by his death, or perhaps as a way of symbolically atoning for her role in his demise.

Conflict with reality

Blanche's character fundamentally represents illusion and fantasy, which inevitably clash with the harsh realism of the world around her. She articulates her rejection of realism explicitly, stating that she does not want realism but wants magic instead. This desire for illusion manifests in several ways:

• She changes the apartment's appearance to make it more feminine and refuses to have exposed light bulbs, which would reveal harsh truths
• She prefers living in a quiet, half-lit world of fantasy rather than facing things as they truly are
• Her behaviour suggests a deliberate choice to deny reality because accepting it would be unbearable

Blanche's relationship with Stanley becomes defined by fundamental incompatibility. She finds him crude, vulgar and common, representing everything opposed to her refined sensibilities. Yet she experiences a perverse attraction to his raw masculinity and physicality, drawn like the moth to the flame that will ultimately destroy her.

Relationship with Mitch

In Mitch, Blanche perceives an opportunity for salvation and security. She presents herself to him as a delicate, innocent woman requiring a strong man's protection and care. This performance demonstrates her skill at creating illusions about her identity.

However, when Blanche defends herself against Mitch's later accusations, claiming that inside, I never lied, this statement reveals her self-deception. She has indeed been lying throughout their relationship, though perhaps she has convinced herself of her own constructed identity. Mitch's eventual confrontation strips away her chief attribute—her carefully maintained illusions—leaving her psychologically exposed and vulnerable.

Sexual history and double standards

Blanche's past sexual encounters have consistently involved strangers rather than established relationships. This pattern helps explain her violent rejection when Mitch attempts to initiate sex, as she reacts as though he were attacking rather than propositioning her.

This rape represents the ultimate destruction of Blanche as an individual, the final brutal assertion of Stanley's dominance.

Tragic conclusion

Blanche's final words in the play poignantly echo her life's pattern. As she leaves with the doctor, she remarks that she has always depended on the kindness of strangers. This statement captures the tragedy of her existence—her story begins and ends in the hands of strangers, having never found genuine connection or security.

The ending emphasises her complete vulnerability and the failure of family bonds to protect her. Blanche's part in the story concludes as it has been lived: dependent on unknown individuals rather than supported by those who should care for her.

Stanley Kowalski

Fundamental characteristics

Stanley Kowalski serves as Stella's husband and Blanche's brother-in-law, positioned at the centre of the play's central conflict. Williams presents him as direct, passionate and aggressively realistic, often resorting to violence to assert his will. He inhabits a patriarchal social system where he expects his wife to be subservient to him, viewing Blanche's arrival as a threat to his established authority.

Stanley's belief that his authority is threatened by Blanche's presence drives much of the plot's conflict. He perceives her refined manner and her influence over Stella as challenges to his dominance within his own household.

Embodiment of the American Dream

Through his Polish ancestry, Stanley represents a particular version of the American Dream—the belief that working-class immigrants can achieve success and status through hard work and determination. He fought in World War II and now works as an auto-parts salesman, positioning himself as a proud working man who has earned his place in society.

Stanley demonstrates fierce loyalty to his working-class friends and sees all such men as capable of achieving their desires through hard work rather than inherited privilege. He appears comfortable and confident amongst the men around him, seeming assured of his own superiority within this social group. Despite sometimes bullying his friends and occasionally becoming violent, he manages to inspire loyalty, suggesting a complex leadership dynamic.

Practical worldview

Stanley operates with entirely practical values and demonstrates no patience whatsoever for Blanche's fantasies and romantic illusions. He speaks plainly and embodies qualities perceived as straightforward and masculine. From Blanche's perspective, he appears crude, vulgar and common—everything she despises in a man.

This fundamental opposition in worldviews makes conflict between them inevitable. Where Blanche seeks magic and illusion, Stanley insists on harsh facts and reality.

Masculinity and dominance

Stanley finds pleasure in his masculinity and physical prowess, making him a dominant character who displays considerable shrewdness beneath his rough exterior. However, he remains sensitive about having married someone from a higher social class than himself. He deeply resents Stella's privileged background, which explains his desire to bring her down to his level socially.

Patriarchal values

Stanley thoroughly embodies patriarchal values, believing that anything belonging to his wife automatically belongs to him as well. This attitude leads him to believe that if his wife has been swindled out of inheritance, then he personally has been swindled. He investigates Blanche's past directly to uncover the truth, showing no concern for Blanche's or Stella's feelings in the process.

Throughout Blanche's stay, he remains convinced that she has consumed his liquor, eaten his food and taken advantage of his hospitality. He sees Blanche as responsible for upsetting the status quo between himself and Stella, resenting how she makes Stella feel superior to him.

His intention to discover the truth about Blanche's past serves his need to re-establish his superiority and dominance over Stella. Knowledge becomes power in his hands.

The rape as dominance

When Stanley rapes Blanche, this violent act serves partly as revenge for her perceived insults and interference. However, it also functions as his final assertion of reality over Blanche's fantasy world. He establishes his dominance over her and her world in the only way he understands—through physical force and violation.

Stella Kowalski

Position between two worlds

Stella exists as Blanche's younger sister and Stanley's wife, occupying a crucial middle position in the play's conflict. She provides feminine balance to Stanley's aggressive masculinity and calm stability against Blanche's hysteria. Williams presents her as the character who bridges the divide between the two opposing worlds represented by her sister and her husband.

Stella's character suggests the possibility that some blend of these two worlds might be achievable. However, Stanley and Blanche's inflexible attitudes ultimately make such compromise impossible. This positions Stella as a pawn in their game, with both attempting to assert their alliance with her against the other.

Quiet acceptance

Williams describes Stella as possessing a quiet, reserved manner. Significantly, Blanche treats her almost like a child, yet Stella makes no objection to such condescending treatment. She simply waits patiently for her sister's moods to pass, demonstrating either remarkable patience or problematic passivity.

Deep physical connection to Stanley

Stella maintains an intensely physical connection with Stanley that defines her character and choices. She demonstrates no desire whatsoever to return to her past life, despite caring about Blanche's welfare. When forced to choose, she will always select Stanley over any other loyalty, including family bonds.

This preference becomes evident through several key decisions:

• Her choice to return to Stanley after he hits her
• Her decision to believe Stanley's version of events regarding the rape
• Her complicity in the decision to commit Blanche to a psychiatric institution

Denial and illusion

Stella's surrender to Stanley's world approaches totality by the play's conclusion. However, significantly, she fiercely defends Stanley against Blanche's criticisms throughout, suggesting her allegiance was never truly in doubt.

The parallel between the sisters emerges most clearly in the ending. Stella's acceptance of Stanley's version of events to protect her marriage and family draws direct comparison with Blanche's own relationship to reality. Like her sister, Stella chooses to deny reality to continue living in an illusion—though her illusion concerns her marriage rather than her past.

Harold Mitchell (Mitch)

Introduction and sensitivity

Mitch serves as an army friend of Stanley's and also works alongside him as a colleague. Williams presents him as clumsy and unrefined compared to educated characters, yet he demonstrates notably more sensitivity and gentlemanly behaviour than Stanley and the other men in their social circle.

When first meeting Blanche, he displays awkward courtesy and embarrassment, immediately apparent in his manner. Blanche quickly notices that he seems more sensitive than the others, perceiving potential in him that the other men lack.

Relationship with his mother

Mitch lives with his mother, who is slowly dying, and he obviously cares deeply for her welfare. This tender relationship demonstrates his capacity for genuine affection and loyalty, distinguishing him from Stanley's more aggressive masculinity.

Role as foil and failed hero

Mitch functions dramatically as a foil for Stanley—a literary device where one character's qualities are highlighted through contrast with another. His more gentle nature makes Stanley's brutality more apparent, whilst his ultimate failure emphasises Stanley's dominance.

Betrayal and failure

Mitch matters tremendously to Stanley, who requires his admiration and respect to maintain superiority within their social group. Therefore, Stanley shares what he has discovered about Blanche's past with Mitch, knowing this will destroy their relationship.

Mitch believes he has been deceived, which wounds his straightforward nature deeply. He attempts to assert dominance over Blanche when he discovers the truth, but cannot achieve the control he seeks. His failure to dominate her in the way Stanley does marks him as a failed hero, ultimately leaving both himself and Blanche lonely and isolated.

This failure emphasises that Mitch, despite his gentler qualities, ultimately cannot escape or challenge the masculine codes that Stanley represents. He remains bound by the same patriarchal values, though he expresses them less aggressively.

Minor characters

Eunice Hubbel

Eunice lives upstairs from the Kowalskis and demonstrates patterns similar to Stella's relationship dynamics. Like Stella, she overlooks her husband's physical abuse, frequently ejecting Steve from their apartment when he becomes violent, only to reconcile with him shortly afterwards.

Her most significant contribution comes through the advice she offers Stella at the play's conclusion. She tells Stella directly that she has no choice but to believe Stanley's version of events. This advice represents what Eunice symbolises within the play's structure: the normalisation of domestic violence and women's acceptance of male dominance as inevitable. She embodies the social pressures that make women complicit in patriarchal systems, even when those systems harm them and other women.

Steve Hubbel

Steve appears as Eunice's husband and one of Stanley's poker-playing friends. Like Stanley, he is vulgar, hot-headed, physically strong and an abusive husband who mirrors Stanley's treatment of women.

Both Steve and Pablo (another poker friend) seem uncomfortable with the decision to call a doctor for Blanche, appearing to disagree with Stanley's handling of the situation. However, neither man directly challenges Stanley's authority, demonstrating the group's hierarchical dynamics and Stanley's dominant position within it.

Steve's character reinforces that Stanley's behaviour represents broader patterns of masculine behaviour within this social world rather than individual aberration. The play suggests these attitudes pervade the working-class male culture it depicts.