Streetcar Named Desire: A Character Analysis

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One of the most obvious connections between the short story and the play does not appear as evident if looked at outside of the context of the argument. If the character of Gretta is translated to “Streetcar”, it may be unclear whether or not she is closer in personality to Stella or Blanche. However, based off of Gretta’s shift in mood after hearing “The Lass of Aughrim”, it seems that Stella aligns with Gretta’s personality before the song, and Blanche embodies Gretta’s behavior after the song. For example, Gretta does not shy away from her husband like many female characters written by men tended to do during the early twentieth century. When Gabriel gives her a cold response at the beginning of the party, Gretta responds, “‘There’s a nice …show more content…
This repetition that is present while she is in a state of upset is extremely prevalent in Blanche’s lines throughout the entirety of the play. Some examples of repetition that are all from Blanche’s dialogue are: “Stella, Stella for star…It’s all right. Everything’s all right” (Williams 44), “Lunacy, absolute lunacy!” (Williams 57), “Ummm, it’s sweet, so sweet! It’s terribly, terribly sweet!” (Williams 115). Joyce and Williams utilize this technique to create a sense of hysteria within their characters. Therefore, Gretta’s dialogue only displays this technique at the end because that is when she acts hysterical, by “throwing her arms across the bed-rail, hid[ing] her face” (Joyce 246). However, that is the moment that Williams draws from to create the character of Blanche because she is nearly hysterical throughout the drama: taking hot baths to cleanse her from her past mistakes, obsessing over the exposed light fixture, lying about an obviously false age on her birthday. Blanche is a more destructive version of Gretta; Stella is the outer and usual appearance of Gretta, but Blanche is the inner demons waiting for something like “The Lass of Aughrim” to let them
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