Stanley Kowalski
This page concerns the A Streetcar Named Desire character. For the Due South character, click here.Stanley Kowalski is a character in
Tennessee Williams's play
A Streetcar Named Desire. He was most famously portrayed by
Marlon Brando in the play's initial
Broadway performance as well as the
1951 film adaptation. Since then, he has been played by
Treat Williams and
Alec Baldwin in, respectively, the
1984 and
1995 made for TV adaptations.
Stanley lives in the
French Quarter of
New Orleans with his wife,
Stella (née DuBois.) A
working class construction worker, he takes special pride in having lured Stella away from her rich family, and shows her off to his friends like a trophy. He has a vicious temper, however, and the two have many fights, in which he is not averse to violence. Near the beginning of the play, Stanley announces that Stella is
pregnant.
Stanley's life becomes more complicated when Stella's sister
Blanche shows up at their door for a seemingly indefinite "visit." The two despise each other almost on sight; the spoiled,
aristocratic Blanche openly looks down upon Stanley, whom she derides as an "
ape", while Stanley is enraged at what he sees as a constant reminder that he isn't good enough for Stella. His resentment grows almost unbearable when Blanche starts dating his friend, Mitch, and lets Stella briefly take refuge with her after an argument in which he hits her.
Stanley starts asking questions of a street merchant who knew Blanche in her old life, however, and finds out that Blanche is staying with Stella and him because she is
homeless; her family's ancestral mansion has been
mortgaged. He also learns that she was paid to leave
Mississippi to quell
gossip about her many affairs, which she began after her husband, a
closeted homosexual, committed
suicide. Overjoyed to have the upper hand, Stanley tells Mitch about Blanche's secret past, which scares Mitch into ending the relationship.
The night that Stella gives birth to their son, Stanley goes out and gets drunk in celebration, and finds a similarly drunk Blanche, lost in
fantasies of better times, when he returns home. He makes a crude, drunken pass at her, which she rebuffs, disgusted. Enraged, Stanley overpowers and
rapes her. This final
assault on what she had left of her dignity sends Blanche over the edge into a
nervous breakdown. Days later, Stella has Blanche committed to a
mental institution at Stanley's insistence.
In Williams' original ending to
A Streetcar Named Desire, Stella accepts Stanley's rape of Blanche as part of his nature, and stays with him. The original film adaptation, however, was subject to Hollywood
Production Code regulations in which characters who had committed crimes needed to be seen to have been punished by the movie's end. Subsequently, an alternative ending was employed wherein Stella leaves Stanley forever.
