This essay will examine both the polarity and unity within the mental suffering of the characters and voices of Tennessee's A Streetcar Named Desire ("Streetcar"). William and Sylvia Plath Collections of poems, focusing specifically on the extent to which they suffer from their imagination and whether or not this is a more frequent commodity than the times they suffer from reality. Both the dichotomy and duality of Plath and Williams will allow explorations to be made through their texts, referring to the suffering of the playwright and poet themselves and how this has been attributed to their own work. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay It seems that in the collection Ariel by Plath and A Streetcar Named Desire by Williams, the suffering of the protagonists is the result of them putting themselves in situations that they thought would free them from the aspects of their past that caused them unhappiness, however, let's see this result in their being subject to further suffering of another form. Fundamentally, both writers convey elements of themselves in the characters and voices they portray. Williams himself admitted that his work is emotionally autobiographical[1] and with Plath it is possible to detect parallels with his narrative work and that of his diaries; it is symptomatically demonstrated and contextually demonstrated that he suffered from an unspecified form of depression (although probably manic or endogenous). In the case of Williams, we can interpret both the contribution of Elia Kazan (the director of many of his plays, very attracted by the freedom and mobility of his work[2]), and Williams's own confession of basing Tom and The Character of Laura Wingfield in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on himself and his sister Rose, who played elements of Rose in Blanche by making her reflect Rose's qualities. After all, as Kazan stated, “Everything in his life is in his plays, and everything in his plays is in his life.”[3] Considering this, we can establish that, as in Rose's case, the disorder Blanche potentially suffers from is schizophrenia. This makes it important to note: Blanche's debaucheries do not define her. They are symptomatic of his disorder, not attributive of his personality. This misunderstanding is what leads the characters around her to mistake her words and actions for what they are not, hence the suffering she is forced to endure after scene 11. Having now established that the two both present individuals suffer from disorders, examine the ways in which their work shows them trying to solve this problem, while also avoiding the consequences. Watzlawick's theory[4] works well to explain this. It is hypothesized that communication problems occur because all communicators do not speak the same language, which happens because people have different views on speaking[5]. This is clearly seen in Streetcar through the portrayal of Blanche's character. Her inability to make herself understood by those around her is ultimately what led to her suffering because it meant she was unable to receive help from them properly. Williams himself was considered an outcast at school due to his diphtheria; his weakened heart prevented him from doing what others do. This is presented through Blanche's character and the marginalization that her illness causes her. Plath shares this ostracism caused by people's inability to understand. In "The Moon and the Yew Tree" we see her referring to herself as a planet and the people around her, her children, also asplanets (in "The Night Dance"). The mention of receiving a gift from the sky could refer to the rest of the matter around her, matter that is both smaller and stuck in one place (as the sky would refer to the sky of a planet). In this way, she could be emphasizing how petty the people around her are and how they are not big enough to reach the universe or other planets but are simply limited to a single view of the world. Her suffering, in this way, is due to the parochialism of the people around her. This is a theme that is vaguely hinted at in his poems, as in "Little Escape" he talks about how "the deaf and dumb // point out the blind and are ignored" and in "Years" he talks about how "They freeze and are", still facing once their limitations and how she does not share this perspective, hence the following phrase “O God, I am not like you.” He also talks about how he is “Unable // To lick clean” since he evidently cannot cure himself of his illness, but this is not something that is understood by those around her. Stella informs us that “There are things about [her] sister [that she doesn't] approve of – things that have always caused pain at home.” … “very young, he had an experience that – killed his illusions!” raising the idea that the deterioration of her mental health began at a young age and that she was always predisposed to it; the death of Allan (and other relatives) and Stanley's aggressive actions simply triggered the onset of his condition, causing a dramatic behavioral decline. It is arguable that Blanche's imagination may be what brought her to reality, although, I often think that in Streetcar we refer to Blanche's imagination, we do so in a way that is synonymous with her illness as it can be difficult distinguish between two once the disorder has behaviorally consumed the individual. This is one of the problems of schizophrenia; it alters an individual's perception by blurring the lines between reality and imagination, so determining whether an individual truly perceives what we would call an imaginative thought as their reality is both difficult to decipher and impossible to measure. Considering that it is the occipital lobe that is responsible for our imagination and that many studies have found a correlation between evident changes in the volume of gray matter (and white matter) in the occipital lobe for individuals suffering from schizophrenia[6]. Because of this, it seems clear that Blanche's imagination, as a mentally ill character, may indeed be her reality, so which of the two she suffers from is debatable. More profoundly, his auditory hallucinations reportedly began within the temporal lobe, a lobe also associated with schizophrenia (since as the volume within the lobe decreases, schizophrenia becomes symptomatic). Therefore, given that this is the reality of a mentally ill individual, it can be argued that it is his own reality that he suffers from, not the alternative. Similar principles apply to Plath and her posthumous writings. Critics, such as Alvarez[7], argue that Plath wrote with death primarily in mind, however, I argue that her writing was an attempt to free herself from suffering, not her entire life. Although Plath later committed suicide, I believe that her pessimistic outlook was simply characteristic of her disorder and not a warning she was sending. Plath's depression has been identified through many critical and psychological interpretations of her work, although it became established fact when she was institutionalized for it in the 1950s.[8] In his last written poem "Edge", for example, he describes two children (presumably his) as "snakes", indicating that they havepoisoned, but does not specify what they poisoned her with. It could perhaps be happiness as in various other poems, he feels joy around them and shows a lot of concern and concern for their well-being. In “The Night Dances,” for example, he writes about how Nicholas danced at night. Nicholas, his son, also suffered from depression and committed suicide in his early forties. Plath almost foreshadows this in her poem by focusing, in the first stanza, on his irrecoverable smile and, in the second stanza, how the answers will become clear in the future. Here, Plath's suffering may seem illogical, however, she judiciously fears what the disease will do to him and rightly so since it can be assumed that Otto passed on his defective genes to Plath and that she also passed hers on to Nicholas. In his poem "Little Escape" he talks about how "dead men cry for it." Since dead men cannot truly cry, his suffering due to paranoia (i.e. his imagination) is emphasized here. Divulging deeper, the relationship with the dead men (i.e. Otto, the closest dead man in his life) raises the question: Was Otto in pain? even from his imagination? The focus of the poem is incongruous with the facts as no evidence has been found that Otto was a soldier, but the poems suggest this nonetheless. Because of this, the poem could allude to the fact that Otto passed on his defective genes, which would work well to explain Plath's fear that her children would also become ill like her. The paranoia surrounding his children is seen in "Death, Inc." where he says: "Look in their hospital // Icebox." The fact that he calls incubators an icebox is evidently the suffering of his imagination as he perceives a perfectly protective environment as a threatening apparatus. His paranoia of becoming ill, of becoming mentally ill, is further emphasized by the midwives who hover around wearing “mortuary gowns”. Furthermore, the idea that both Blanche's character and Plath's vocalizer are in distress due to an illness to which they were predisposed emphasizes that their suffering is caused by their harsh reality. The absence of Giddens' [9] ontological security in the voice that comes in Plath's poems and in Williams' character, Blanche, highlights the lack of meaning in the lives of the two. It refers to the consistency of events in an individual's life. Meaning, as Elias (1985) stated, is found in the absence of anxiety and chaos in one's life, allowing the individual to experience positive and stable emotions; we must function in opposition to Beck's cognitive triad[10]. Contravening this threatens ontological security. Focusing specifically on Blanche, ontological security is often threatened by death. We know that (as in the case of Williams and Hazel[11]) Blanche lost Allan to suicide and so this, as Philip A. Mellor has argued, causes people to "question the meaning and reality of social frameworks in which they participate, shattering their ontological security"[12] Catharine from Suddenly Last Summer is also attributed to this; all the individuals who characterize Williams' schizophrenic sister, Rose, can probably be interpreted that her security ontology has been destroyed by her father's death Despite her euphemistic statements in the diary, it seems evident that Plath refrains from talking about it and creates alternative fantasies to convince herself to hate him, just as admitting that a person she loves is simply gone. too painful to bear. Mental suffering in Streetcar is presented in a social way through the characterization of Blanche and was used to justify changes in subsequent psychiatric treatments. For this reason,it can be argued that the text itself contributed to the anti-psychiatry movement of the time, considering its support of the very idea that psychiatric treatments are often more harmful than helpful to patients. Blanche's hesitation towards the unjust methods used to treat her in the 1940s highlights the suffering we can assume she is subjected to at the end of the play. When Stella asks, "Shall we go, Blanche?" and Blanche replies, “Do we have to go through that room?” his hesitation highlights that perhaps there is something wrong with what Stella is doing, thus creating doubt in the audience's mind. Although the topic of their conversation was about how to reach the Doctor and Matron waiting outside without meeting the other characters, Williams' intention may have been to underline Blanche's disapproval of the method of treatment Stella chose for her. At the beginning of this scene he establishes that "this place is a trap!" The emphasis on the abstract noun “trap” denotes a situation into which she has unknowingly fallen but from which she now cannot escape. In the production notes for A Glass Menagerie, Williams wrote: "To escape a trap, he must act ruthlessly." Blanche did not escape the trap because of her obedience to the Doctor and the Head Nurse. She wasn't ruthless enough to disrupt Stella's life further; he never projected his suffering onto others, never intentionally. This is evident through captions such as "he lets himself be pushed into a chair". In the end we see that she has accepted her disorder and therefore her cooperation as even when the matron releases her arm, she continues to follow her. Stella's involvement in the play's epilogue is of great significance, particularly when she screams: “Don't let them do this to her, don't let them hurt her! Oh, God, oh, please, God, don't hurt her! What are they doing to her? What are they doing? [Tries to free himself from Eunice’s arms.]” Williams intentionally uses repetition in the final sentences to emphasize the lack of awareness people had regarding mental illness, hence their ineffective actions in deciphering how to help cure it. The character of Blanche is both a visual and dialogic representation of everything that is wrong with the psychiatric treatments used in the 1900s; the other characters in the play are simply there to accompany and emphasize the issue. Considering that Streetcar was published in 1947, it can be considered one of the most powerful texts of its time due to the contribution it made to the movement. Williams' work was particularly significant in the 1940s due to the social search for stability after nuclear attacks and the general fear of government.[14] The universality of his plays and the themes depicted within them allowed new Americans to connect with him during the post-Depression and World War II era. The nuances of the play struck audiences as it drew attention to the victimization of women, highlighting their role in a male-dominated society (this was done through the self-expression of the female characters - Stella choosing Stanley and settle with him, Blanche and her public debauchery). It allowed the public to see the outcome of reality not coinciding with an individual's imagination and even when an individual's social perceptions deviate from that of their true self. As Williams himself said, all of his works "had, at least subliminally, a great deal of social content." Another movement of the 19th century was Romanticism; one critic[15] stated that “Blanche [was] literally achannel of Romanticism”. Her presentation as the embodiment of inspiration, subjectivity and the primacy of an individual may perhaps have been unintentional on Williams' part, but it links to the progression of the anti-psychiatry movement of the time since, although Blanche's speech when she puts discussion the route to The doctor and the head nurse were waiting for her at the door, and this also greatly reflected her turbulent personality. As Robert Bray says in the introduction to 'Vieux Carr?', "Williams's semitropical move marked the beginning of an artistic awakening of a period of vigorous self-discovery."[16]As for Rose, the character who Blanche is potentially a manifestation of, Williams stated that, “She could have been well enough by now if they hadn't done that damned operation on her; would have returned to the surface"[17] (the operation is a prefrontal lobotomy). This element of guilt is plagued throughout Williams' works; in The Glass Menagerie, Williams' character, Tom (which is actually of Tennessee!) says "Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind, but I'm more loyal than I meant to be!" After that of Rose's institutionalization, Williams decided to get Rose out of there after seeing what it did to her the lobotomy; he stated[18] that, aside from a few jobs, getting Rose out was one of the best things he had ever done. As for the form of Williams's text, he talked about how American theater productions don't do it have the audience support that other forms of literature, elsewhere, receive in an interview with the New York Times, Williams stated that "audiences are not conditioned to have the patience to allow them (the characters) to develop as artists. ". It is no wonder that Blanche was misunderstood by those around her just as she was also misunderstood by contemporary audiences. RDLaing[19], in fact, studied the coercion of psychiatric treatments on patients. His research focused on the anti-psychiatry movement of the 1970s. In fact, Laing's research goes so far as to say that delusion is self-deception in the most absolute form. An illusion, he argues, is not so deceptive since the entire being is not deceived and, therefore, would not classify as an act of total deception. Reciprocity in self-deception is an essential part since collusion is supposed to be an interpersonal process. Collusive entrapment occurs when, symptomatically, individuals begin to express their feelings of self-alienation and depersonalization. Furthermore, individuals are described as capable of functioning alone but dramatically incapable when the scene changes and they find themselves in the company of another. It is telling that being alone made her suffer less than being in the presence of those who interfere a lot but understand very little (hence Blanche was alive and apparently in good health upon her arrival at the Champs Elysees). The work of Laing and Watzlawick actually worked together on this topic, condemning that the study of the pragmatic effects of disturbed human behavior is a communicative reaction to the situation in which the individual finds himself as opposed to the illness itself. This is illustrated so profoundly in both Streetcar and Plath's Ariel collection as we see Blanche, although she destroyed herself and others in the process, functioned satisfactorily on her own and it was only when she came to Stella and was in the presence of individuals like Stanley over a long period of time who had become increasingly incapacitated. This is also seen in Plath's poems. For example, focusing on "Tulips", Plath was initially fine in her other poems since she was hospitalized, but the invasion of her husband and thetulips he had brought her made her feel extremely conflicted and uncomfortable. Her poems are extremely paradoxical in this sense, as we see throughout the collection that she sometimes states, "I am too pure for you or anyone else" only to then contradict this by stating, "They own me." there are implications of rape in Streetcar when Stanley "picks up [Blanche's] limp figure and takes her to bed" emphasizing that this was a real event and not something Blanche had imagined. Similarly, it has been hypothesized[20], from "Daddy", one of Plath's poems which profoundly highlights Freud's Electra complex, that there was an episode of rape. Although figuratively speaking, going by this speculation (since the poems are polysemous) it can be interpreted that in order to overcome and overcome these memories, Plath must confront them to cease her suffering, hence her awareness of them as they are becoming unrepressed. . Plath in 'Little Fugue' states "I was seven, I knew nothing... I am lame in memory", thus providing an opportunity to explore why she sometimes chooses imagination over reality (because reality is not remembered). It may not be a selective choice as his imagination may simply become filled due to having undergone such large scale repression that there are now significant gaps in his mind as to where those memories were originally located, hence his conscious mind's decision to resolve in the imagination. In both texts, situations occurred, thus accentuating that the cause of their suffering is due to their reality. From a communication point of view, we mainly saw Blanche's husband, Allan, with whom she spoke but he, obviously, failed to understand her and consequently killed himself. We also saw Blanche ask for help from Stella, the only remaining member of her family that we know of and this also ended disastrously as there was the involvement of Blanche's brother-in-law, an individual who definitely had a point from a foreign perspective, and the results were once again disastrous. Ultimately, it seems that Watzlawick's interactional view may work to explain why Blanche was so misunderstood by the people around her and why this led to her suffering further. The lack of actually addressing Blanche's disorder throughout the play could perhaps be what led to her condition worsening significantly towards the end of the play, leaving her vulnerable to Stanley (hence the events of the rising action of the plot). The streetcar also suggests rape, as we see in scene ten where "She sinks" and Stanley "picks up her limp form and carries her to bed." We were mainly aware of the fact that Blanche did not lend herself to Stanley's behaviors, however, this action only triggered the epilogue of the work in which we see Blanche's narrative arc come to an end and her suffering decline into a complete loss of reason and identity. She may also, potentially, suffer from the realities of motherhood. Or, on the contrary, she may suffer because of her imagination and motherhood may have acted as her salvation. The half-rhymed couplet of lines 21-22 forms a soothing tone; the smooth enjambement introduces it. He also refers to his children as lamps. This image of light is seen in Streetcar in a very different way as we see Blanche constantly in the dark, hiding as much as possible from the light and when Mitch asks to see her, she is reluctant to let him and Stanley permanently remove the paper. lanterna is a huge contribution to the epilogue of the work. Plath, in most of her other poems, is shrouded in darkness,thus describing his children through the concrete noun "lamps", although perceptibly derogatory, is seen as positive imagery. In Streetcar we see that this is exactly the opposite as Blanche hides from the light, disguising her age by only allowing the visibility of the penumbras to form her appearance. The happiness Plath receives from her children interferes with her idea of ​​suicide, hence her wanting to put them back in her body. In 'Edge' he talks about how "He folded them // into his body like petals." She also describes herself as the "Milk Jug, now empty", feeling as if she has fulfilled her duty (to breastfeed them, i.e. perform a duty to them that only she can do), her emptiness indicating that after doing this , she is no longer of use to him. Subsequently, the use of an inanimate object (“petals”) to describe them insinuates in her the feeling that the children are not real, since this is what she needs to believe in order to die with the least difficulty. In this way, perhaps, her imagination is her savior as opposed to the cause of her suffering as it allows her to accomplish what she intended, without the interference of reality; the poem began with the statement "Woman is perfect" and therefore Plath committed suicide a week after completing this poem. Although the context for Blanche is completely different, she also euphemizes the reality of the situations that cause her pain and instead creates a desired version of the truth. We see her admit this in scene nine when she admits “I'm not telling the truth. I say what should be the truth. Arguably, underestimating the reality of their situations and succumbing to the balls of oblivion may be what prevents them from healing the cause of their suffering. Overall, Plath tends to focus more on individualism in mental suffering, making her differ somewhat from Blanche in terms of her perspective and approach to treatment. This is because they suffer from several types of mental illnesses that Plath interpretively believes she can overcome on her own, but Blanche seeks assistance. In the title poem of Plath's Ariel Collection, we see Plath embark on a journey to healing in which, although she fails, she strives independently. The individualism in this emphasizes the polarity between the two writers but even within this there is duality as, just as with Blanche, the voice in Plath's poem Ariel strove to heal but ended up in the wrong place. In her diaries, Plath mentions her father's death, stating that she would "live a cheerful life anyway, despite his face".[21] All of this works in conjunction with the journey undertaken in 'Ariel', a poem that could be compared to Blanche's entire journey to the Champs Elysees. The voice in Plath's poem leaves on horseback, like an arrow that intends to free itself from the past, that is, the repressed memories of her father, just as Blanche leaves for the Elysian Fields to start over and forget her past (her memories of Allan and his suicide) but ends up in the wrong place. This unwanted destination works for both, the voice in "Ariel" and Williams' character Blanche, as she thought she would end up better with the support and stability of Stella who is, presumably, her only remaining living close relative. Even the vocalist in Plath's poem thought that this would be a journey that would allow her to overcome her past and instead she loses control of the horse (i.e. of the situation she finds herself in, or perhaps of the men around her due to the imaginary male associated with the stallion (the horse that Ted Hughes confirmed she rode) causing her to end up in the wrong place therefore, in an attempt to free themselves from their ownsuffering, they lose control of the current situation and end up suffering anyway. The “red” that the vocalizer sees in 'Ariel' may refer to the shade of red that is seen when one closes one's eyes after seeing light. This could mean many things, blood, danger but above all hell. In relation to Streetcar, the package that Stanley throws at Stella at the beginning of the show shares the same color. This may indicate the beginning of both, the suffering voice in Plath's poetry and also Blanche's, both further emphasized by the poetic undressing of "Ariel" and Blanche's character arc. An interesting observation in conjunction with this unification of the texts was John Gassner's observation that in Streetcar "poetic drama becomes psychological reality." In Plath's poem, The Bee Meeting, she uses bees to characterize her disorder. She comes face to face with it, realizing that it is here and will cause chaos. Present and intrusive, it stings her and she accepts that it is now part of her. The speaker then, in the next poem focused on bees (The Arrival of the Bee Box), asks, “How can I get them out?” Blanche was also looking for help on how to get rid of her disorder, but as it was established it was not possible to help yourself. As in the case of Blanche, the speaker of Plath's poem then concludes that “The box is only temporary” (the box represents the entrapment that accompanies disorder). Blanche was blindly ambitious, firmly believing that everything would be fine once she was with Shep Huntleigh and had his financial support. Plath also perceived that the box/illness was only temporary as her metaphorical journey in the poem Ariel was supposed to free her from this is what is holding her back. It is debatable whether this represents strong female characters or unconsciously sick protagonists who cannot see beyond the self-created limits of their imagination. The indistinctness of the actual disorder is seen later in the poem in Plath's linguistic decision to use a pronoun over a noun: “I have to live with it overnight // And I can't stay away from it. // There are no windows, so I can't see what's // in there." It is not the disorder that is identified but the awareness of it and the recognition that it will make her suffer. In Stings, Plath describes herself and "The Man in White" as "bare-handed". As for Streetcar, this underlines how Blanche but also Stanley (or perhaps even Mitch), who offers an ineffective solution, have nothing in hand, no idea or solution. about how to resolve the suffering.For Plath, this additional person unable to help her could be Ted Hughes We also see in the poem Tulips that the main reason Plath felt in conflict with her surroundings was due to him and what he had for her. brought, in the same way Blanche reacts to Stanley; his actions make her feel out of place. 'Stings' highlights that despite all these interferences, neither the protagonist nor those around her know how to free themselves from suffering. As the poem progresses, we hear lines like “my strangeness evaporates” which raise the idea that his illness will go away on its own. Although it appears that it was Plath suffering from her imagination as a disorder would not go away without treatment, psychologists have argued that it was manic depression that Plath was suffering from. This meant that her depression would have a periodic event that Plath would have been familiar with, hence the line “It's almost over. // I am in control." He also says that “Bees fly. They taste spring. Spring refers to the birth of