A streetcar Named Desire Socratic Seminar Questions

Drama Unit Socratic Seminar Questions Part 1: A Streetcar Named Desire 1. Blanche who is homeless, comes to her sister’s house at the beginning. Blanche had been a schoolteacher, married Allan, a man she later discovered to be gay. Her reactions to his sexual orientation caused him to commit suicide. Lonely, she becomes a prostitute, who loses her teaching career when her sexual relationship with a teenager is found out. After the family plantation Belle Reve is lost, she turns to her little sister Stella, who lives in with her husband Stanley in a poor area of New Orleans. She is a very deluded character; She hides her past and fragility behind her Southern aristocrat clothes and manners and is very harsh and mean to Stanley, calling him†¦show more content†¦Stella is a static character because she still chooses Stanley over her sister. It has always been Stanley, and it always will be Stanley. Even when Blanche claims that Stanley raped her, she still does not believe her own flesh and blood. 2. Blanche is the protagonist, had a great tragedy in her early life. She fell in love young and married, and discovered her husband was gay. Shortly after, her husband died and left her a young widow. â€Å"And then the searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been any light that’s stronger than this—kitchen—candle.†(scene6) After her sister left, she had to take care of family members. Their deaths resulted in the loss of her familys Belle Reve, and Blanche being displaced and thrown into a society she did not understand. After all this tragedy, Blanche preferred to live in her own made up reality of denial where she is still the belle of the party; and life is full of small talk and manners. She tries to display herself as innocent. Stanley is the antagonist, he is violent and an enemy to the Protagonist, Blanche. â€Å"He acts like an animal, has an animal’s habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one!†(scene 4) He hits Stella, and rapes Blanche. â€Å"We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning!† (scene10). It is also found that Stanley also reveals â€Å"the survival of the fittest,† in