"THE GLASS MENAGERIE & A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

Why did Tom apparently fail to find the romance he craved? Has life so embittered him that he can't ever be saved from self-pity and sullenness? Or is he guilt ridden over deserting his mother and sister? Still another possibility is that Tom was doomed to chase rainbows. Adventure, romance, excitement--that's what you see in the movies. To pursue them in real life amounts to self-deception, for they are often as elusive as illusions.

Tom can't shake loose his memories of the past. Images of Laura haunt him. His emotional ties to the past may stretch, but they never break. Do you think we are all held captive by our past or is Tom a special case? In the last moment of the play Laura blows out her candles, casting the stage into total darkness. Williams has devised a dramatic ending to the play, but the action also suggests that Tom has finally rid himself of Laura's memory. Why he should suddenly be able to do so, however, is not totally clear. Perhaps the war, symbolized by lightning, has changed everything, including the way men think.

^^^^^^^^^^A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE: THE PLOT

Imagine a delicate white moth flitting about a heap of garbage in a cinder lot. That's approximately the feeling created by the sight of Blanche DuBois arriving in Elysian Fields to visit her sister Stella and brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski. Blanche not only looks out of place, she acts that way, too. Refinement and good breeding show in all she says and does, at least until her mask is stripped away bit by bit.

Blanche teaches high school English in Laurel, Mississippi. She needs a place to stay while recovering from a nervous breakdown. Stella agrees to accommodate Blanche, at least for a while, but she cautions Blanche that the apartment is tiny and that Stanley isn't the sort of man Blanche may be used to. He's rough and undignified. But Stella adores him despite his crude manner.

Soon after arriving, Blanche reveals that Belle Reve, the old family plantation in Laurel, has been lost to creditors. Blanche blames her sister for leaving home years ago while she was forced to stay on and watch all the residents of Belle Reve die off one by one.

The loss of Belle Reve troubles Stanley. He distrusts Blanche and accuses her of having sold the plantation to buy furs and jewels. When Blanche denies wrongdoing, Stanley ransacks her belongings looking for a bill of sale. He tears open a packet of letters and poems written by Blanche's husband, who committed suicide years ago. Stella tries unsuccessfully to protect her fragile sister from Stanley's fury.

That night Blanche and Stella go to the movies while Stanley and his friends play poker and drink. When they return, Blanche is introduced to Mitch, whose courteous manner sets him apart from Stanley's other friends. She charms Mitch easily and begins to flirt with him. Upset that the poker game has been interrupted, Stanley explodes in a drunken rage. He hurls a radio out the window and he strikes Stella. Spurred by Stanley's assault on his pregnant wife, his friends drag him into the shower. Meanwhile, Stella and Blanche escape upstairs to a friend's apartment.

Dripping wet, Stanley emerges into the street. Like an animal crying for his mate, he keeps calling Stella until she comes down and allows herself to be carried off to bed. Later Mitch returns and apologizes to Blanche for Stanley's coarse behavior.

Blanche is disgusted by Stanley's barbarity and would like to leave, but she has nowhere else to go. She invents a story about a rich friend named Shep Huntleigh who might give her refuge. She tries to persuade Stella to flee with her. However, Stella rebuffs Blanche and pledges love for Stanley regardless of how brutally he treats her.

Mitch, a lonesome man in search of a wife, begins to date Blanche. But Stanley has acquired some information about her that would probably destroy the relationship. Stanley has learned that Blanche was an infamous whore back in Laurel. Blanche denies it, but soon after, when Blanche flirts with a newsboy, you realize that Stanley's assertion may be true.

Mitch talks of marriage. Blanche discloses the tragic story of her earlier marriage to Allan, who turned out to be a homosexual. When Blanche rejected him, Allan took his own life. Now Blanche can't erase from her mind the image of his bloody corpse or the sound of the fatal gunshot. Profoundly moved, Mitch embraces Blanche.

Stanley, meanwhile, has learned that Blanche hasn't taken a leave from her teaching job. Rather, she has been fired because she seduced one of her students. In addition, she was told to leave Laurel because night after night she entertained soldiers from a nearby army base.

Stanley tells Mitch about Blanche's past. As Stella prepares a birthday party for her sister, Stanley tells her, too. Shocked, Stella pleads with Stanley to be gentle with Blanche. But Stanley presents Blanche with a cruel birthday present--a one-way bus ticket back to Laurel. Stella rebukes Stanley for his heartlessness, but he reminds her that their marriage had liberated her from a life of phony gentility. Suddenly Stella feels labor pains and Stanley rushes her to the hospital.

That evening Mitch visits Blanche. He is highly agitated and tells her what Stanley has said. She pleads for understanding by confessing that she had been intimate with men in order to fill her emptiness after Allan's suicide. Her tale arouses Mitch. He wants the sex that she's dispensed to others. He starts to assault her, but she repels him by shouting "Fire!" out the window.

Late that night Stanley returns to find Blanche dressed in fine traveling clothes. She informs Stanley that Shep Huntleigh has invited her on a cruise and that Mitch had apologized for not coming to her birthday party. Stanley bluntly calls her a liar. He wants to prove that he hasn't been fooled by her lies. He approaches her seductively. She tries to stop him with a bottle, but too weak to resist, she collapses at his feet. Stanley picks her up, then carries her off to be raped.

Weeks later Stella is packing Blanche's belongings. Blanche thinks that she's going to the country for a rest, but in truth, Blanche is being committed to a mental hospital. Stella doesn't know if she's doing the right thing. In order to preserve her marriage, however, Stella has decided to dismiss the story of the rape as just another of Blanche's fictions.

While dressing, Blanche talks of cruises and romantic adventures with Shep Huntleigh. Shortly, Stella leads Blanche out to meet the doctor and nurse from the hospital. Blanche balks at the sight of them. The nurse begins to overpower her with a straitjacket. But the doctor intervenes. He talks kindly to Blanche, as though he is the gentleman caller she's been expecting. Calmed by the doctor's gentleness, Blanche takes his arm and walks to the waiting ambulance.

^^^^^^^^^^A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE: BLANCHE DUBOIS

Blanche is an English teacher, but she's one of a kind. You'd never forget her if you took her course. Shortly before the play begins, Blanche has lost her job. She wasn't fired for poor teaching skills, however. The superintendent's letter said Blanche was "morally unfit for her position." That's probably a fair evaluation of a teacher who seduced one of the seventeen-year-old boys in her class. Also, Blanche's sexual exploits so outraged the citizens of Laurel, Mississippi, that they practically threw her out of town.

You don't know all these facts about Blanche until late in the play. At first, she seems to be just a high-strung, but refined, woman who has come to New Orleans to pay her sister a visit. But as the play unfolds, you see Blanche's past revealed bit by bit. At the end she is undone, fit only for an asylum. Nevertheless, you never see her humbled by defeat. She maintains ladylike dignity even after being raped. Perhaps she's not as crazy as she appears. In fact, there might be places where she would not be regarded insane at all.

As an ambiguous character Blanche may arouse both compassion and disapproval simultaneously. She is often regarded as a symbol of a decaying way of life engaged in a losing struggle against modern commercialism. She came to Elysian Fields seeking love and help, but she found hostility and rejection. She has been scarred by her husband's suicide and by the loss of her ancestral home. She's reached a stage of life when she can no longer depend on her good looks to attract a man. Is it any wonder that she flirts and prefers dimly lit places?

To compensate for loneliness and despair, she creates illusions, much like Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie. Also like Amanda, Blanche clings to the manners and speech of dying Southern gentility. Pretending is important to her. It makes her feel special. She says that deception is half of a lady's charm. She calls it "magic." Unfortunately, though, she is caught in a situation with Stanley Kowalski, who not only abhors her superior airs, but seems bent on destroying her for them. Why Stanley finds Blanche such a threat is worth thinking about.

Some people consider Blanche not a tragic victim but an immoral woman who deserves what she gets. Blanche tells so many lies that she herself can't remember them all. Some lies may be harmless, but others are destructive. For example, Mitch is crushed by her untruthfulness.

Because of her past--town whore, liar, sexual deviate--you may agree with critics who say that Blanche is an object of derision--too degenerate to be taken seriously. On the other hand, her past behavior can be explained and maybe even defended. If you appreciate what has happened to her in life, you can understand why she acts the way she does.