Essay - Class Differences, etc. it Isn't Too Difficult to See Where...

Class differences, etc.

***** isn't too difficult to see where Tennessee Williams was heading in the opening scene of A Streetcar Named Desire. There is a fragile butterfly, dressed in gossamer clo*****s, not flitting across the *****ps of ***** flowers, but rather forging around down in the depths ***** this unruly garden. Blanche Dubois is, in fact, crawling among the slugs that root around the bottom of the garden, looking for something to eat. In a Marxist universe, *****re is probably no reason for the existence of butterflies, or at least, ***** butterflies ***** can*****t or will not do some w*****k—pollinate ***** flowers, for example.

Using the same metaphor, it is all too likely, right from the opening scene, that the butterfly of Belle Reve, Blanche Dubois, will end up like so many other weak specimens, wings spread, tacked to a cork board ***** more vigorous life forms can admire her static beauty until *****, *****o, fades.

***** before ***** arrives, it becomes clear that Stella is the real woman, the ***** who can act in elemental ways w*****h her man, Stanley. She is only too eager to play catch with him for a package of meat; she has obviously played physical games with him many times before, as her condition *****ly indicates.

Blanche ***** an unexpected guest, a ghost in ***** white clothing, but Stella welcomes her nonetheless. They are kin; ***** is an outsider ***** their world, but ***** world ***** gone as becomes clear in the second scene. In the most simplistic Marxist conceptualization, Stanley is the 'world man,' the man who is capable of perform*****g work, taking joy in simple pleasures, procreating to populate the nation. Blanche is the opposite: she ***** too fragile for ********** sitting in ***** and Stanley's apartment, she sits perched, stiffly, on the edge of a grimy chair, as if she would fly away if she had anyplace to go.

It is unlikely that a ***** who is happy, in that place ***** time, to live among a polyglot mix ***** whites and blacks in ***** rough ***** tumble French Quarter of New Orleans would have any use for such a hothouse specimen *****s Blanche, and he doesn't. W*****n it is finally revealed that, in fact, Blanche has no home, Stanley suspects she has cheated Stella in some way. He accuses her in h***** rough and guttural *****. She responds, ***** her cultured and posh manner. Blanche says:

***** are thousands of papers, stretching back over hundreds of years, affecting ***** Reve as, piece by piece, our improvident grandfathers and father and uncles and br*****s exchanged the land for their epic fornications—***** put it plainly!... The f*****-letter word deprived us of our plantation, till finally all that w***** left—and Stella can ver*****y that!—was the house itself and about twenty acres ***** ground, including a graveyard, to which *****w all ***** Stella and I have retreated.

To *****, her ancestors were no better than *****; they were fornicators ***** mortgaged the homestead