Why do people live together? Why do people crowd in high-rises instead of being the only resident on an island? It is because we all depend on others for our living. Although we are born and die alone, we never lose our need for the others from infancy to adulthood. From the beginning of life, healthy babies and children live under the protection of their parents. As adults, our needs for dependency are fulfilled in marriage, friendship and other kinds of relationship. However, although we seem to long for the 'kindness of strangers (or non-strangers), can we 'always depend on' that? Or is it just an illusion that one might have? In Tennessee Williams' most famous play, A Streetcar Named Desire, it explores our desire for love, protection, dependency and how it turns into extreme love addiction.
A Streetcar Named Desire has been put on stage for over 50 years. It success
lays mainly on the complexities of its four characters, Blanche Dubois, her
sister Stella, Stanley Kowalski and his buddy Harold Mitchell (Mitch). Among
the four, Blanche is the most vivid, distinctive and complicated character.
Her desire for love and protection is also the strongest. Blanche was once
a southern gentlewoman who lived in her family's plantation at Belle Reve.
When she was sixteen years old, she married a handsome poet called Allan Grey.
However, 'there was something different about the boy, a nervousness, a softness
and tenderness which wasn't like a man's.' (Williams, 182) Later, when Blanche
saw him with an older man in a room, she discovered her husband was a homosexual
and Allan committed suicide. As a dependent person, Blanche was fully absorbed
by the relationship. Her love towards Allan was her whole life and the loss
of it was traumatic to her. The loss of Belle Reve and deaths in the family
also increased her burdens. But as her sister Stella had left for marriage,
Blanche had to deal with those problems all by herself. Disheartened by that,
Blanche traded sex for love and attachment. She tried to fight loneliness
by having 'intimacies with many strangers' and 'hunt for some protection'.
By having relationships with other people, Blanche's pain caused by the death
of her husband was relieved. However, this love addiction made things worsened.
She lost her job as an English teacher because she was found trying to seduce
a schoolboy. She was finally notified by her landlord and the mayor of Laurel
to leave the hotel and town.
Blanche's dependency stemmed deeply from a need for love and her needs to
be proved important. She sought support and consolation through others, especially
from men. Her life was motivated by a belief that all women should be soft,
fragile and well protected. When Blanche first came to the Kowalskis in a
desperate search for shelter and rest, she looked in a 'delicate beauty which
must avoid a strong light. There is something about her uncertain manner,
as well as her white clothes that suggest a moth.' (Williams, 117) Blanche's
self image was traditional. It was totally based on the belief that a woman
should be the object of adoration by men. In order to receive protection and
to survive, Blanche had to be attractive. That was the reason for her consciousness
of her age and appearance. Throughout the play, Blanche constantly mentioned
about her looks and expressed her sorrow towards her fading beauty: 'I am
soft. I am fading now. I don't know how much longer I can turn the trick.'(Williams,
169)
As Blanche perceived attraction, attachment and sex as food and water, her
search for protection was desperate. Realizing her wish for dependency on
Stanley was impossible, Blanche finally looked towards his poker friend Mitch
as someone to hang onto. She tried to avoid rejection and abandonment at any
cost. She did everything to make him want her, including lying about her age
and said that Stella was older than she, covering the lights with colored
paper was and never go out with him during daytime. Although her dating with
Mitch was exhausting, Blanche still believed that 'the lady must entertain
the gentlemen'. (Williams, 175) She clung to the notion that if she can depend
on someone, she can avoid the feeling of being unlovable, which she associated
with being single. Thus, when Stella asked her whether she wanted Mitch, she
answered, 'I want to rest! I want to breathe quietly again! Yes I want Mitch¡Kvery
badly¡K if it happens, I can leave here and not be anyone's problem.' (Williams,
171) Moreover, Blanche hoped that love and marriage would solve all her anxieties
and problems. She wanted to end the days of being insecure and longed for
unconditioned love. She admitted to Mitch that he was 'a cleft in the rock
of the world that I could hide in'.
Blanche was totally bound by the established feminine role, that is, to find
protection and happiness through men. When Stanley informed Mitch of Blanche's
past, she confessed that 'after the death of Allan, intimacies with strangers
were all I seemed able to fill my empty heart with. I think it was panic,
just panic, that drives me from one to another, hunting some protection here
and there'. (Williams, 205) As Blanche put her last hope on Mitch as someone
who can meet her unresolved needs and maintain her in balance, Blanche was
crushed with Mitch's defection. After Blanche's last hope for marriage and
dependency was shattered, she found little meaning in life. Being hit by this
serious loss, the unreasonable ideas suddenly took over Blanche's mind. She
turned schizophrenic and desperately clung to her admirers' letters. She talked
to imaginary suitors and expected one of her admirers Shep Huntleigh would
save her from the awful situation. Despite Stanley's rape finally led to the
total collapse of Blanche, her hope for dependency remained deeply in her
heart. Thus, when she was escorted away by the doctor to the sanitarium, she
said the most famous lines of the play: 'I always depended on the kindness
of strangers.'
Blanche's sister Stella also had an unhealthy dependency on men. However,
the total dependency of a wife on husband is one of the female roles prescribed
by the society. Therefore, Stella was more socially acceptable and could survive
in the harsh patriarchal world. Stella was once a cultivated woman like Blanche.
But after marrying, her previous interests were deserted in exchange for the
attachment of herself to her lover. When Blanche asked Stella about her friends,
she said her friends were all Stanley's. Stella' s dependency was borne out
of fear and loneliness than out of love. Everything else was put on hold in
service to the needs and wants of her husband. She even subordinated her own
feeling to her husband who she depended on and tolerated his violent behavior.
During the poker night, Stanley threw Blanche's radio out of the window. Noticing
this, Stella called him an 'animal' and Stanley stroked her. She was then
taken upstairs to her neighbor Eunice. However, when Stanley threw back his
head and howled her name, Stella returned quietly at his call, and 'come together
with low, animal moans.' (Williams, 154) In the next morning, Stella was serene
and happy again. She admitted to Blanche that Stanley's abusive behavior was
not uncommon, especially when he was drunk. On her wedding night, he had already
smashed all the light bulbs with the heel of her slipper. Stella hung on to
the relationship and held it for life even if it means for suffering. because
she accepted abuse rather than being lonely.
Like Blanche, Stella had a feeling that a relationship makes one whole, or
more of a woman. She depended on Stanley because she had a satisfying sexual
relationship with him. She told Blanche that she' can hardly stand it when
he is away for a night¡K when he's away for a week I nearly go wild and when
he comes back I cry on his lap like a baby.' (Williams, 125) After the poker
night, Stella said to Blanche, who could not understand why she loved Stanley
that 'there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark-
that sort of make everything else seem- unimportant.'(Williams, 162) This
expectation of sex became the solution for her reassurance of love. In the
obsessive sexual love, Stella felt that Stanley was a piece of herself and
could not bear the feeling of fragmentation and loss.
Stella also depended on Stanley economically. Stanley went to work and make
money for the family. He controlled all the money for household and did not
give her a regular allowance. He gave her money only to 'soothe things over'
when he had beaten her. Moreover, when Stella heard Blanche's story of being
raped, she did not want to believe it. In order to continue living with Stanley,
especially after she had a baby, Stella chose not to believe what Blanche
told her. What was more important to her was her own survival. Thus she accepted
Eunice' s advice: 'No matter what happens, you've got to keep on going'.
As our cultural definition of independence based on the supposedly masculine
ideal of autonomy and separation from the need to depend on another, female
(the other) are characterized by maintaining bonds with one another. While
women are thought to be more dependent than men are; we accept dependency
in women and make fewer effort to change them. This culturally imposed bias
to perceive female as more dependent than male influence the way we behave.
In Williams' play, both Stella and Blanche's tragedies stem from the social
perception of women's dependency. In the patriarchal society, dependency is
the central attribute of femininity, an attitude of waiting and expectancy.
A woman should be the one who does not act but is acted upon. Stella showed
a total acceptance of the feminine role, which is characterized by dependency,
passivity and subjectivity. Social conditions taught Stella to maintain the
patriarchal ideal of womanhood, that is, to become a woman whose only desire
is to love a man and to be loved by him, to serve him and adapt her to him.
Such an idea becomes a source for Stella' s assertion, but it also overwhelmed
her true identity. She did not have any purposeful ambition, but was preoccupied
with the relationships with her husband and friends. She also abandoned her
own opinions and tastes like other wives do to adopt those of her husband's.
Moreover, the narrow sphere of her life confined her 'success' to harmonious
relationship with man. Thus she tended to be self-sacrificing and submissive
because heterosexual relationship was the most valuable thing in her life.
If she lost her dependency on Stanley, she could not function well emotionally
and sexually. The patriarchal social norms such as the perception of women
as inferior to men and the economic dependence of women on men reconcile Stella
to her subordinate role and define it as desirable. Following the traditional
path, Stella compromised herself to be a submissive wife to Stanley's male
supremacy and sacrificed Blanche in order to survive.
Like Stella, Blanche's chief motive in her life was also traditional--to love
and to be loved. However, Stella' s dependency on Stanley is justified as
a wife's devotion to the husband, while Blanche's dependency on men was regarded
as wanton. Blanche's tragedy stemmed from the conflict between the social
perceptions and her strong self-inclination. Social traditions influenced
her to remain convinced of the clearly defined male and female roles. She
used every method to seek male protection so that she could be proved important.
However, stepping into the middle age, Blanche experienced a series of loss-
loss of husband, loss of youth, physical attractiveness and purpose of life.
(Since she lost her job and Belle Reve) Thus, Blanche was vulnerable to the
feeling of worthlessness and consequent loss of self-esteem, because the traditional
role of female were no longer relevant to her and the availability of other
roles and opportunities are absent to her. Therefore, she saw Mitch as her
last hope for success in her life. Nevertheless, Blanche's past still haunted
her and led her to the final defeat. In the repressive social climate of mid-century
America, dependency of woman implied the total manipulation of her by her
man. Blanche's active role in search for love and protection was seen as a
rebellion against female propriety and a challenge to the male supremacy.
In the sensitive social climate of the post-war era, there was no solution
to Blanche's problem between performing the traditional role and satisfying
her own desire.
In addition, Blanche overvalued love and heterosexual relationships. It can
be seen as an emotional wound caused by her past relationship with her homosexual
husband Allan. The lost of her husband was a great threat to her security,
self-esteem and resulted in her continual questioning of values and lifestyle.
It further motivated her need to prove herself feminine. Blanche wanted to
be pursued by a dominant strong man. She attempted to replace lost relationship
with a new one immediately, hoping for the things missing in the past. However,
this over-dependency in relationships contributed to the difficulty for Blanche
in achieving gratification other than through relationships with men. She
depended on her use of beauty and helplessness to subdue the other sex. This
gave rise to active aggressive drives to eroticism, in contrast to the passive
seductiveness in the feminine role. From her promiscuous sexual relationships
with strangers to her involvement with a schoolboy and flirtation with the
newspaper boy, Blanche's seizing of initiative in encounters with male was
seen as sexually aggressive. Thus, although Blanche was no different to Stella
in her dependency on men, she was not accepted by the society as such aggressiveness
contradicts with the traditional feminine role of being chaste and passive.
As a result, Stanley made use of her past and destroy her life completely.
Throughout the years, we expect boys to be independent from his early days.
Unlike their female counterparts, male dependency needs are neglected. Having
leant about the importance of presenting themselves as strong and independent,
years of practice and peer pressure reinforce men to appear self-contained
and invulnerable. Their dependency needs are well hidden but present. In A
Streetcar Named Desire, Stella' s husband Stanley was a typical male chauvinist.
'Since earliest manhood the center of his life has been pleasure with women,
the giving and taking of it, not with weak indulgence, but dependently with
power and pride of richly feathered male among hens' (Williams, 128). However,
Stanley's aggressive sexuality and masculinity did not necessarily indicate
that he possessed more security concerning his identity than other male characters.
His assertiveness was strongly dependent on his relationship with his wife
Stella. He used his manly image, physical strength and pretended experience
to win and subdue Stella. Stanley's dependency turned into serious manipulation
and control of his wife. He was desperate to be the exclusive love in Stella'
s life and the only source of companionship she had. He saw other women in
her life as competitors and was highly jealous of them.
When Blanche first came to the Kowalskis, she won Stella' s sympathy with
her tragic marriage and her loss of Belle Reve. She also won Stella over to
stand on her side. Stanley thus felt his relationship with Stella was threatened
by blanche. He tried to make Blanche leave by questioning her of Belle Reve
and told Stella that her sister was only cheating them.
The struggle between Stanley and his opposition Blanche became more intense
during the poker night. After Stanley stroked Stella as she called him an
'animal', Stella left him and went to her neighbor Eunice. Although he had
been feeling that he was superior to his 'little wife', he felt lost inside
the empty house alone. He had an intense preoccupation with his wife and a
strong dependency to be around her. When he could not be near her, he felt
a sense of loss and incompleteness. Stanley's relationship with Stella represented
an unhealthy dependency. Stanley depended on Stella to be his sex object and
mother. He screamed: 'my baby doll's left me¡K I want my baby' and wanted Stella
back desperately. And when she returned, he grasped at her like a child who
clung to his mother. He relied on her to clean up after his messes and comforting
him when he was hurt.
Not being able to understand Stella, Blanche suggested to her that they could
get out of this situation by opening up a store. She continued to remind her
sister of her genteel upbringing and of her husband's crudeness. She criticized
Stanley that 'acts like an animal, has an animal's habits¡K don't hang back
with the brutes!' (Williams, 163) Stanley, who felt Blanche's presence would
disrupt his relationship with Stella, overheard Blanche's remark. He feared
that Stella might leave him. As Stella 's support and admiration of him provided
him with a reflection of himself as the type of man he would like to be, Stanley
worried that he might be left with no one to be depended on. Thus, Stanley
planned to crush Blanche. He attacked her by being critical, sarcastic and
abusive to protect his vulnerable situation. He revealed Blanche's past to
Mitch and finally destroyed her life by raping her when Stella was giving
birth to his child. It can therefore be seen that Stanley's dependency need
was so desperate that he would use any methods, even at the expense of other
person's life, to satisfy his wants.
In contrast to Stanley, Mitch contained more refined qualities, which Blanche
regarded as superior to the to others. Although Mitch was Stanley's poker
buddy, he was a more sensitive person. It can be explained by his dependency
on his mother and the girl who gave him the cigarette case. Mitch was an oedipal
figure. He depended on his mother even on choosing his own spouse. He was
unable to make decisions or take action without the others' approval. After
his only love, who gave him the silver cigarette case had died and his mother
was about to die, Mitch depended on Blanche's companionship. He thought that
Blanche would be a gentlewoman like his girl and his mother, so that he could
depend himself on her. However, when he was told by Stanley about Blanche's
past, he was in great despair because his dream for life-long companionship
vanished. Although he seemed to love Blanche truly, he depended on and valued
the approval of his mother and buddies. As they all regarded Blanche as 'not
clean enough', he decided to desert her.
As early as being a little boy, men begin to acquire a sense of maleness.
'In order for them to create masculinity, he must identify with his father,
which means that he must separate from his mother, giving up some of his sources
of security. Since most fathers are less available as sources for dependency,
boys are reinforced for winning and achieving to compensate for renouncing
the need for the mother. ' (Solomon, 167) Despite this, as love and protection
are basic human needs, dependency needs for men are not disappeared but suppressed.
As men begin to have relationship with the other sex, their hunger for dependency
is greater because he has few or no other places to get this need met. 'The
heterosexual relationship becomes the only safe haven from the masculine demands
for independence and inexpressiveness. It also becomes the only place where
he can show the 'softer' side of himself.' (Solomon, 108) Married man like
Stanley tend to rely almost solely on their wives for filling their dependency
need, because he does not want to show the 'feminine' side to his male friends.
However, since Stanley's dependency needs are so strong, it became a heavy
burden on Stella. Along with this dependency, Stanley became intolerant towards
being away from Stella. Instead of trust, Stanley's possessiveness and jealousy
dominated his relationship with Stella. Thus, Stanley's dependency suffocated
both himself and his wife.
In comparison to Stanley, Mitch identified himself with his mother, to whom
he was close to. Thus, in spite of his strong physique, he possessed the 'clinging
vine' characteristics. He also possessed the characteristics of being expressive
and sensitive, which were regarded as more feminine. Thus, his need to be
depended on relationships with the other sex and appreciated by his friends
was very obvious. As a result, although Mitch's dependency need may be as
great as Stanley's may, he was the one to be regarded as a dependent person
or a 'mummy's boy' by his buddies. It is a social consequence caused by the
rigidly constructed gender role and our intolerance of male to expose their
'feminine' needs.
Seeking protection and someone to depend on may be a big illusion for us as
blanche was sent to the sanitarium, Stanley raped his sister-in-law, Stella
was forced to live with her abusive husband and Mitch lost his girlfriend.
However, as we are afraid of being lonely, we still depend on each other to
satisfy our own need. For most women nowadays, they still dream of having
a relationship with man who is a little older, taller and considerably more
successful, so that they are well protected under his wings. And for man,
he still want to be taken care of by a gentle female. He wants to regain his
mother's love, which was lost as he was growing older and forced to be independent.
Today, as the number of working women increase, men and women are step into
the new era of independence. Nonetheless, our demand to be emotionally or
sexually dependent on our partners may even be greater. If we are still obsessed
with the impossible needs and unrealistic expectations, we may end up with
the situations like that of A Streetcar Named Desire. In order to achieve
a positive dependency, we must value our true love and honestly. Magic and
miracles can only lead to tragedies and they are always not for us to depend
on.
Reference:
Williams, Tennessee (1976) A Streetcar Named Desire and Other Plays Penguin
Books
Adam, J. (1991) Versions of Heroism in Modern American Drama London: Macmillan
Academic and Professional Limited
McDonough, C. J. (1997) Staging Masculinity: Male Identity in Contemporary
American Drama North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Solomon, M. (1994) Lean On Me: The Power of Positive Dependency in Intimate
Relationships New York: Simon & Schuster Inc.
University of Cambridge (1982) Themes in Drama vol. 4 Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press