english sastra

A Streetcar Named Desire


By :
Khairunnisa Artificianti
220408023
English Literature – English Department
Semarang State University
2010

1. Explain in brief the PLOT focusing on conflicts of the characters.
a. Introduction
.It is just after dusk in New Orleans on an evening early in May after World War II. In front of a shabby apartment building on a street named Elysian Fields, a white and a black woman are sitting on the steps while piano music plays in a nearby tavern. The white woman, Eunice, lives in the building’s upstairs apartment. The black woman lives nearby. Two white men in work clothes–Stanley Kowalski and his friend Mitch, both no more than 30 around the corner.
.......Stanley and his wife, Stella, about 25, occupy the first-floor apartment. After Stanley shouts for her, she steps out on the landing and he throws her a package of meat. He and Mitch then reverse direction to go bowling at an alley around the corner. Stella decide to follow and watch them.
.......After a moment, Stella’s sister, Blanche Dubois, rounds the corner with a valise after arriving from Laurel, Mississippi. She checks an address on a slip of paper, then looks in disbelief at the apartment building. Could Stella really live in such a run-down dwelling? Blanche, about 30, is elegantly attractive but somewhat fragile and vulnerable. In her white suit, complemented by pearl earrings and white gloves, she is out of place in this working-class neighborhood. When Eunice asks whether she is lost, Blanche says, “They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at–Elysian Fields.” Eunice confirms that Blanche has come to the Right Street and right address, 632. The black woman goes to the bowling alley to fetch Stella.
Quotation : The exterior of a two story corner building on a street in New Orleans which is named Elysian Fields and runs between the L an d N tracks and the river
Stanley : “ Hey There, Stella, Baby ! ”
Stella : “ Don’t holler at me like that. Hi, Mitch. ”
(After a moment Blanche comes around the corner carrying at the valise. She looks at the slip of paper, then at the building, and she repeats it again and again.)
Blache : “ They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at Elysian Fields. ”
b. Body
After the sisters reunite and exchange pleasantries, Blanche looks for liquor and finds it, and Stella does the pouring because Blanche is shaking. Blanche assures her sister that she is not a drunkard but “just all shaken up and hot and tired and dirty.”
Blanche says she is on leave from her job teaching English at a high school in Laurel. In fact, she was fired for promiscuous behavior with a teenager. Pretentiously aristocratic, Blanche bemoans her sister’s plebeian surroundings. The apartment is run-down and spare, with only a kitchen and a bedroom–separated by a curtain–and a small bathroom. Blanche fishes for compliments about her appearance, asks for another drink, and wonders whether it will be proper for her to stay in such close quarters with Stella’s husband roaming about. Stella tells her that everything will be fine, although she cautions Blanche that Stanley’s friends are common and unrefined.
Several months, Stanley and Blanche become mortal enemies, and Stanley dedicates himself to her destruction while she keeps company with Mitch. Opening up to Mitch, she tells him about her deceased husband, Allen Grey, who killed himself after she found out he was a homosexual and told him he disgusted her while they were out dancing a polka called the Varsouviana. Meanwhile, Stanley probes Blanche’s past and gets “the dope” on her from a supply man at his plant that regularly travels through Laurel and stays at the Flamingo Hotel there. He has told Stanley that Blanche carried on affairs with many men while living at the Flamingo, a second-rate hotel, and was evicted because of her promiscuous behavior.
Quotation:
Blanche : “ I warn you Don’t! I am in danger. ”
Stanley : “ What did you do that for? ”
Blanche : “ So I could twist the broken end in your face! ”
Stanley : “ I bet you would do that! ”
Blanche : “ I would! I will if you … ”
Stanley : “ Oh! So you want some roughhouse! All right, let’s have some roughhouse! ”
He spring toward her, overturning the table. She cries out and strikes him with the bottle top but he catches her wrist.
c. Conclusion
Weeks later, Stella packs Blanche’s belongings while Stanley plays poker with Mitch, Steve, and Pablo. Eunice comes down and asks about Blanche, who is bathing. Blanche is now deeply disturbed–in fact, insane. Stella answers that she told Blanche arrangements were made for her to rest in the country. When a doctor and a matron (nurse) arrive for Blanche, Blanche struggles against them. Stanley soothes Stella as the doctor and matron take custody of Blanche for treatment in an institution.
Quotation :
Stella : “ I couldn’t believe her story [about the rape] and go on living with Stanley. Oh, God, what have I done to my sister?. ”

2. Brief of Characters
• Blanche
Central character who lives in a fantasy world of Old South chivalry but cannot control her carnal desires. Stella’s older sister, who was a high school English teacher in Laurel, Mississippi, until she was forced to leave her post. Blanche is a loquacious and fragile woman around the age of thirty. Blanche arrives in New Orleans at the Kowalski apartment and eventually reveals that she is completely destitute. Though she has strong sexual urges and has had many lovers, she puts on the airs of a woman who has never known indignity. She avoids reality, preferring to live in her own imagination.
• Stella
Blanche’s younger sister, about twenty-five years. Stella possesses the same timeworn aristocratic heritage as Blanche, but she jumped the sinking ship in her late teens and left Mississippi for New Orleans. There, Stella married lower-class Stanley, with whom she shares a robust sexual relationship. While she loves and pities Blanche, she cannot bring herself to believe Blanche’s accusations that Stanley dislikes Blanche, and she eventually dismisses Blanche’s claim that Stanley raped her. Stella’s denial of reality at the play’s end shows that she has more in common with her sister than she thinks.



• Eunice
Stella’s friend. Eunice and her husband, Steve, represent the low-class, carnal life that Stella has chosen for herself. Like Stella, Eunice accepts her husband’s affections despite his physical abuse of her. At the end of the play, when Stella hesitates to stay with Stanley at Blanche’s expense, Eunice forbids Stella to question her decision and tells her she has no choice but to disbelieve Blanche.
• Stanley
Stella’s husband. Stanley is the epitome of vital force. He is loyal to his friends, passionate to his wife, and heartlessly cruel to Blanche. With his Polish ancestry, he represents the new, heterogeneous America. He sees himself as a social leveler, and wishes to destroy Blanche’s social pretensions. Around thirty years of age, Stanley, who fought in World War II, now works as an auto-parts salesman. Practicality is his forte, and he has no patience for Blanche’s distortions of the truth. He lacks ideals and imagination. By the play’s end, he is a disturbing degenerate: he beats his wife and rapes his sister-in-law. Horrifyingly, he shows no remorse.

3. Setting of the story