A Streetcar Named Desire

It was interesting to me as a reader that in A Streetcar Named Desire the author chose to pit the fleeting values of the past against the upcoming values of the future that were diametrically different. Blanche, the "southern belle" lives in that past, but is crushed by it as well. We see it come up again and again as struggles with her drinking , saying she rarely touches it, but Stanley feeling that he has to dominate her and shatter this pretty idyllic world that she has created, tells her that "Some people rarely touch it, but it touches them often." {page 639} In her struggle with her relationships with men we see Blanche search for that perfect match, someone to care for her, much like Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God , but Blanche, unlike Janie always self destructs. She can't quite attain the dream, so she settles for fulfilling her sexual needs, but hiding it, creating this idealistic world because women did not flaunt their sexuality. Stanley who discovers this uses Blanche's own past against her in the only way he can, taking that which a true southern belle holds to be her greatest gift. {Page 684} Even Mitch discovers Blanche's many lies and decides that she is not clean enough, that she does not possess the "womanly values" to be around him and his mother and is on the verge of sullying her already questionable reputation. {Page 680} It is a sad commentary on a life when a that's left is a path of lies and shattered dreams. Yet I see Stella as the more tragic character. She is the one who betrayed her sister in favor of her husband who beats her and will most likely beat their children. Stella is the one who left Belle Reve behind so it could fall. Stella is the one who choose to follow the new world values and leave behind everything. I find it ironic that in the end it is Stella who chooses of her own free will to live in this idealistic world where she has to believe lies and delude herself in order to continue to live with Stanley. It is an interesting commentary on life as we see how dependant the female characters on the men in the story. Williams as an author is portraying these gender roles so women have limited choices and we see how even Stella is locked into the past. Would we see, I wonder if Stella had chosen her sister to eventually leave Stanley, take her child and find a job, an apartment, a healthcare package and go on with life....without a man. Maybe that's the real elucidation of the story. men only complicate things and eventually make you go crazy.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

I really enjoyed reading Hurston's work and how Janie would not settle for what anyone else, her grandmother, her friends or even herself as she travlered through life thought should make her happy. She really broke the mold as to the myth of what women should act like in marriage and also as a woman. They are not the delicate, soft spoken, meek creatures that men saw them as. Janie in harnessing some of that freedom found herself some happiness in Tea Cake after two marriges that were less than desirable that severely limited that limited that freedom that Janie somehow managed to maintain. It is hard to imagine being so constricted and limited for so long that one cannot even let their hair fall loose on their shoulders and keeping that freedom of spirit. It seems like such a simple thing, yet that pleasure is a freedom that {yet in the readings that we have done} so often dies. Janie fights for her freedom and refuses to be without hers for long. It is that fiestiness that makes you relate and root for janie as you read her story. Somewhere in Janie there is a piece of you that can be seen and that is what Hurston is saying. Janie is all of us.