2003, Form B. Novels and plays often depict characters caught between colliding cultures--national, regional, ethnic, religious, institutional. Such collisions can call a character's sense of identity into question. Select a novel or play in which a character responds to such a cultural collision. Then write a essay in which you describe the character's response and explain its relevance to the work as a whole.
A Streetcar Named Desire revolves around the idea of colliding cultures. It is not only cultures colliding with each other, but the ideals and morals inside the culture that causes certain responses to opposing cultures cultures. This is the case of Blanche Dubois, the classic southern belle. In A Streetcar Named Desire. It revolves around a culture clash between Blanche Dubois and Stanley Kowalski, but more importantly, the old south vs. the new south. Blanche Dubois represents the dying south; the old morals and ideals, fancy attire, and rich lifestyle. On the opposite side you have Stanley Kowalski, the brawny, blue collared worker who married Stella, Blanche's sister. He represents the new south; the hustle and bustle, the change, the hardworking, and common individuals. Throughout the play, cultural and social issues and collisions have deep and resounding impacts on the characters around them, and Blanche Dubois is a fantastic example in A Streetcar Named Desire and what it stands for in terms of colliding cultures.
Already in Scene One of A Streetcar Named Desire, we get an idea of who Blanche Dubois is and who she represents as a culture and person. We are introduced to a woman of a faded society; Blanche Dubois is a sophisticated, educated, and beautiful woman who has found herself in a mentally and physically rough situation. She lost the family mansion and plantation, Belle Reve. This is immediately where we begin to see a cultural collision. Blanche is forced to rely on her younger sister, Stella Dubois. It is commonly the older sisters job to look out and keep watch of her younger sister because she is the older and more experienced one. However, this is not the case and is setting the scene for the tension that is to arise. Arriving in New Orleans, cultures begin colliding. She is unprotected; she no longer has the gold and the decadence that Belle Reve supplied for her, she is on her own in a society that she is unaccustomed to. She is surrounded by vulgarity, dirt, work, and people she normally would never associate herself with. Another culture clash by Blanche occurs between her seeing Stella's house. She is appalled at the house, it is far too simplistic for Blanche's liking. She looks down upon it. Much like she looks down on changing. Blanche is opposed to change. She was raised upon a certain set of ideals and bred specifically to follow them.
Time and time again in this play it comes down to survival, and even in this case of cultures it occurs there. Blanche slowly starts to slip into madness, but the more and more she begins to slip into madness the more and more Blanche Dubois relies on the past. This is a cultural mistake. The worse thing for Blanche Dubois to do is to sink back into more of her past life when her goal should be focusing on the life in the new south. It is later a detriment to her. The inability of her to forget the past and dwell on the past, much like Jay Gatsby, leads to her demise and fall of sanity.
Another culture clash lies within Stanley Kowalski, he is the definition of a new southern. He is all brawn, hard-working, and vulgar. He doesn't take extravagance or fluff, which is what Blanche is. She represents fantasy and magic, not realism. Stanley is purely realistic. This culture clash between the two leads to constant head butting and accusing, until the sole root of their relationship towards each other is destruction. In the end, Stanley wins; validating the fact in this changing society you can either adapt to the changing culture and survive or die in the old culture that is a fragment of what it used to be.
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