Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire

In Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, Stella Kowalski is one of the main characters, however, she is often overlooked because her sister Blanche, and husband Stanley are much more dynamic; the central conflict of the play occurs between Blanche and Stanley. Without Stella, though, the two characters would have no reason to have made contact with each other, let alone fight. The conflict of the play can be read as both Stanley and Blanche fighting for Stella’s love.

“Stella has embraced him with both arms, fiercely and full in the view of Blanche. He laughs and clasps her head to him. Over her head he grins through the curtains at Blanche.” (84)

This excerpt from the novel displays the true, underlying struggle between Blanche and Stanley that Blanche masks as a problem of status differences. Stella and Blanche came from a much more reputable upbringing, growing up on a plantation (“Belle Reve”). Stella left Mississippi and got married to Stanley, a rough, brutish Polish-man. From the beginning of the play, the couple’s differences are made apparent: “Stella . . . a gentle young woman, about twenty-five, and of a background obviously quite different from her husband’s” (4). Despite his flaws and tendencies of crazed, violent activities, Stella is madly in love with Stanley, even though Blanche strongly opposes the union on many occasions.
Stella’s unwavering love for her husband is strongly based on their physical attraction to each other, which is uncharacteristic of the stereotypical gentle woman, who is not supposed to crave sex. Blanche does not understand this lustfulness, because she does not possess animalistic qualities like the majority of the other characters. For example, Stanley brings home uncooked meat and hurls it at Stella in the very first scene of the play, an act which clearly exemplifies his primitive behavior. Stella is “thrilled” by such behaviors (73). Stella’s ability to handle her husband can also be interpreted by as an ability to adapt and survive. Just as she was successful in leaving Mississippi and finding a better life, Stella is able to survive the “habits” of Stanley’s, no matter how terrible the circumstance may be (74). Unlike her younger sibling, Blanche is unable to adjust in such ways; her marriage ended catastrophically, as the reader finds out.

Stella’s name means “Star”, as Blanche shows the reader in the first scene of the play; “Stella, oh, Stella, Stella! Stella for Star!” (10). Her name contrasts with that of her sister’s which means white. A star is associated with light and an inaccessible brilliance. The color white is associated with purity, but the play specifically associates Blanche with a “moth” (5), a much more delicate and ashen, feeble creature. Stella’s name can be associated with luminosity, which Blanche is prone to evading. “Turn that off! I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare!” (11). The avoidance of light by Blanche shows her avoidance of truth, which occurs throughout the novel.

The Bloodhound Gang’s song “The Bad Touch” exemplifies an animalistic sexual desire that is shown between Stella and Stanley.
“You and me baby ain’t nothin’ but mammals
So let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel”

(Word Count: 520)