What does Williams's depiction of Blanche and Stanley's lives say about desire? As its title indicates, A Streetcar Named Desire explores the destinations to which desire leads. In following their respective desires, Blanche and Stanley end up in very different places. Blanche is the victim of a culture that has unhealthily repressed its connection to primal and natural urges. Blanche's culture also forbids love to cross boundaries of class, race, and "normal" gender relationships. This …showed first 75 words of 729 total…

…showed last 75 words of 729 total…brutish, primitive, apelike, rough, and uncivilized. Stanley finds this sort of superiority offensive and says so, but there is something primal and brutish about Stanley. By contrast, Blanche represents civilization on the decline. She speaks vaguely of art, music, and poetry as proof of progress, reveals little true knowledge. Blanche does not give Stanley credit for any higher feelings, but Stanley dislikes Blanche because of her unwillingness to reconcile herself to her own "lower" feelings.