THE UNWILLINGNESS TO ADAPT TO A FOREIGN ENVIROMENT Victoria, Mannie, Corina, Richard & Vanessa Streetcar Seminar.

THE UNWILLINGNESS TO ADAPT TO A

FOREIGN ENVIROMENT

Victoria, Mannie, Corina, Richard & Vanessa

Streetcar Seminar

MOVING ON FROM HIGH SCHOOL TO UNIVERSITY OR COLLEGE NEXT YEAR, HOW DO YOU FEEL YOU WILL ADAPT?

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

Blanche is unwilling to adapt and accept her new reality:

• Unwilling to accept the reality of her downfall in social ranking and wealth

• Unwilling to accept the reality of her physical change as she ages

• Unwilling to accept the reality of her past many sexual relations

• Unwilling to accept the reality of her sisters home where she will be staying

ADAPTING TO A NEW WORLD…

CHARACTERS UNWILLINGNESS TO ADAPT FROM THEIR OLD WORLD TO NEW WORLDComparing Streetcar to other works read in class

COMPARING TO FIFTH BUSINESS

Blanche• Product of the Old World, she is culturally

influenced• Grew up in a wealthy family, she along her

sister were to inherited the wealth• At a young age she was married, to young

man in which she later found that he was gay, her cruelty towards him afterwards led to his suicide

• She becomes lonely and empty, unable to bear her guilt

• She moves to New Orleans to stay with her sister, and finds it hard to cope with her new environment also being the New World

FIFTH BUSINESS CON’TBoy Staunton

• Product of the Old World, was raised in a wealthy family and later inherited the wealth

• The snowball incident gives him a guilty conscious, however he is quickly able to move on from it

• Makes a grand fortune, becomes a successful business man

• He is married to Leola, and tries to help her adapt to his lifestyle, and societies expectations

FIFTH BUSINESS CON’T Uneasy life in the Old world:

Blanche: Percy “Boy” Staunton:

• Blanche Dubois had hit rock bottom as her family loses their ancestral home Belle Reve and their entire fortune

• She has to deal with the suicide of her young husband

• She is unhappy and insecure due to her aging and loss of beauty

• She has a deep alcoholic and sexual addiction

• Overall life becomes harder for her as she depends on male strangers for her sexual needs

• Boy uses humiliation and inflicts pain upon vulnerable characters (Mrs. Dempster, Leola)

• As a young boy he acts as a bully, shaming Paul Dempster in public due to his mother’s madness

• He is responsible for Mrs. Dempster’s simplicity and premature birth

• When married to Leola he treated her with no respect, would ignore her and cheat on her numerous times

• Even as a grown man he remains in denial

FIFTH BUSINESS CON’T Change within the new world:

• “I never was hard or self-sufficient enough. When people are soft—soft people have got to shimmer and glow they’ve got to put on soft colors, the colors of butterfly wings, and put a paper lantern over the light…It isn’t enough to be soft. You’ve got to be soft and attractive. And I am fading now! I don’t know how much longer I can turn the trick.” (Williams, 92)

• “I don’t want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it!—Don’t turn the light on!” (Williams, 145)

FIFTH BUSINESS CON’T

“I brought some nice clothes to meet all your lovely friends in.” (Williams, 16)

• Wealth and material goods have a way of getting the best of both characters Blanche and Boy Staunton.

• Living a life of denial, lies and deceit, Blanche and Boy appear to be something they truly are not.

COMPARING TO OEDIPUS

Both Oedipus and Blanche try to run away from their destiny, but only Blanche fails to adapt to the new world causing self-destruction

OEDIPUS CON’T

Blanche OedipusSelf-centeredDependant

EmotionalPrideful

OEDIPUS CON’T

"Never inside, I didn't lie in my heart" (Williams 147)

"Compliments to women about their looks. I never met a woman that didn't know if she was good-looking or not without being told, and some of them give themselves credit for more than they've got. I once went out with a doll who said to me, "I am he glamorous type, I am the glamourous type!, I said. "So what?"" (Williams 38)

OEDIPUS CON’T

Secrets - One Republic

COMPARING TO HAMLETHamlet and Blanche are both unable to let go of their past

and unwilling to adapt to their new world.

HAMLET CON’T• Unwilling to accept the living conditions of her

sisters home where she will be staying• Unwilling to accept the fact that she has

physically aged• Unwilling to accept the fact that she has a long

past of many sexual relationships• Unwilling to accept that she does not have the

same wealth and social ranking she once did

HAMLET CON’T• Hamlet is unwilling to accept the

fact that his father has been murdered by his uncle

• He is unwilling to accept his mothers hasty marriage

• Refuses to accept his new reality

HAMLET CON’T HAMLET:

• Constantly dwelling on how great of a King, father and husband his dad was

• Deals with this by trying to fulfill his filial obligation and take revenge on Claudius

BLANCHE:

• Constantly dwelling on her old home, old life and old status

•Deals with this by trying to maintain her old image and dressing in expensive clothing

HAMLET CON’T Blanche’s unwillingness to adapt:

“Let me look at you. But don’t you look at me, Stella […] not till later, not till I’ve bathed and rested! And turn that over-light off! Turn that off! I wont be looked at in this merciless glare! […] I never thought you would come back to this horrible place! What am I saying? I didn’t mean to say that. I meant to be nice about it and say –Oh what a convenient location!” (Williams, 11).

“I brought some nice clothes to meet all your lovely friends in. […] I brought nice clothes and I’ll wear them” (Williams, 17)

Analysis:• So unable to accept the fact that she has physically aged she doesn’t want her own

sister looking at her• Cannot accept and adapt to her sisters living conditions• Repeatedly brings up the fact that she has nice clothes to wear in front of Stella’s

friends, cannot accept her downfall in social status and wealth so she dresses like she is still wealthy

HAMLET CON’T

•Hamlet is stuck on his old world ideal of Filial Obligation

•He cannot move forward or adapt to his new world because he is determined to honor his father by fulfilling his orders to kill Claudius

•Although he struggles to accept his new world (a world without his father, and his mother being married to his uncle) he eventually adapts as he comes to a realization at the end of the play

• Through his filial obligation comes to learn and realize that the purpose of his life is to live a life of honor and integrity

•This realization proves his adaption

• Blanches unwillingness to adapt leads her to her doom

• She refuses to accept her new surroundings, environment and life in general

• She is so consumed with dwelling on the past that she leaves no room for adaption

• Unlike Hamlet, Blanche never comes to any realization and this results in her downfall and destruction.

HAMLET BLANCHE

COMPARING TO ARTHUR MILLER

Trapped in the new world

ARTHUR MILLER CON’T New world vs. Old:

• Blanche is stuck in time. She is stuck in the old world and cannot adapt to the new world around her.

• Since her sister Stella and Stanley are part of the new world and she still in the old, they clash like oil and water.

ARTHUR MILLER CON’T

•Blanche is not willing to give into the new world. She is bound to life back in the old days and cannot adapt to the new world society.

•Miller also talks about laying down life. This is also something Blanche is not willing to do. Blanche pretends to be rich and have wealth just like old times.

•Blanche believes you are born into wealth. You don't just become it rich if it doesn’t run in the family.

ARTHUR MILLER CON’T

•According to Miller, Blanche does not have a stable environment. Whenever things are not going her way she escapes her problems by constant drinking or running from the truth. Stanley uses this weakness against her.

Stability:

ARTHUR MILLER CON’T Hiding the Truth

• She rushes about frantically, hiding the bottle in a closet, crouching at the mirror and dabbing her face with cologne and powder.(Williams 9.3)

• Blanche is always living in a secret. She tries to hide her age and drinking problems. Drinking is Blanche’s free will but this is what makes fate separate her from Mitch.

ARTHUR MILLER CON’T Bad Habits

• She springs up and crosses to it, and removes a whiskey bottle. She pours a half tumbler of whiskey and tosses it down. She carefully replaces the bottle and washes out the tumbler at the sink. (Williams 1.71)

• Consuming alcohol is one of the first thing Blanche does when visits.

ARTHUR MILLER CON’T Society

•Miller describes how society can be responsible for cramping up our lives.

•This describes how society destroyed Blanche.

•Stanley showed no mercy for her in the new world just like Blanche may have treated Stanley the same if he was living in the old world.

COMPARING TO FRYE Theories of Northrop Frye…

“The moral of all this is that every form in literature has a pedigree, and we can trace its descent back to the earliest times”

Therefore…

Everything we know comes from something we’ve previously known.

FRYE CON’T A Street Car Named Desire:

“Yes, something- ape-like about him, like one of those pictures I’ve seen in- anthropological studies! Thousands and thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is- Stanley Kowalski- survivor of the stone age! (…) His poker night!- you call it- this part of apes! (…) God! Maybe we are a long way from being made in God’s image, but Stella- my sister- there has been some progress since then! (…) In this dark march toward whatever it is we’re approaching… Don’t- don’t hang back with the brutes!” (83).

FRYE CON’T

Analysis:

• Blanche fails to accept Stanley and his nature because he does not fit into the world she has known all her life

• She cannot relate with him or her environment because it is foreign to her; the life she has lived up until New Orleans has been completely changed

FRYE CON’T

Frye also stated…

“Suppose you’re shipwrecked on an uninhabited island in the South Seas. They first thing you do is to take a long look at the world around you (…) and you notice two things about this objective world. In the first place, it doesn’t have any conversation. (…) There’s nothing that responds to you: it has no morals and no intelligence, or at least none you can grasp. It may have a shape and a meaning, but it doesn’t seem to be a human shape or meaning. Even if there’s enough to eat and no dangerous animals, you feel lonely and frightened and unwanted in such a world”

Therefore…

Lack of Interaction with the world makes a person feel isolated/lonely/frightened.

FRYE CON’T

A Streetcar Named Desire:

“ I [Blanche] don’t want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misinterpret things to them. I don’t tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it!” (145).

FRYE CON’T

Analysis:

• Blanche chooses to live a life of illusion rather than accept the truth of her reality

• She is unable to interact with her real world because she does not know or understand it

• She cannot accept her reality and therefore fails to connect with the people within her reality, such as Mitch

• Leaves her feeling isolated from society; unable to interact and create relationships

1. Where does the desire to resist adapting to a new environment come from? Do you think it is necessary to adapt?

2. In a new/different situations, do you find that you easily adapt like Oedipus and Hamlet? Or are you more like Blanche who sticks to her own ways?

3. Why is the unwillingness to compromise destructive?