comparison between a streetcar named desire and the color purple

form and methods comparison

purple:

narrative: epistolary form (adds realism and adds to understanding of character); multiple narrators (Celie and Nettie); time jumps; setting shifts; first person

characterisation: appearance; language and dialect (conveying literacy in Nettie and Celie)

streetcar:

dramatic structure: linear; protagonist/antagonist stagecraft: plastic theatre; stage directions; costume dramatic characterisation: appearance; motives; minor characters; dramatic irony; conformation with/subversion of stereotypes

speech and language: vocabulary; symbolism; monologue

context

purple:

• 20th century over a course of approx. 40 years

• post-emancipation, however still widespread poverty, segregation

• development of some civil rights (60s) in latter part

• some critics complained that her characterisation of black men did little to combat negative and violent stereotypes (Ishmael Reed)

• autobiographical elements

streetcar:

• Stanley said to have been a soldier in ww2

• New Orleans a rather cosmopolitan setting (‘there is relatively warm and easy intermingling of races’), especially compared with the old south

• Blanche based on Williams’ sister who was lobotomised

• backdrop of slavery and the old south - the Dubois sisters

identity (streetcar: blanche)

• “her appearance is incongruous to the setting”

• Blanche’s self identity largely relies on her perception of herself as an object of male desire, her interactions with men always beginning flirtatiously

• struggles with the idea that beauty and youth are transitory, since her self-perception is based on these ideas - she doesn’t want to be seen - ‘Turn that off! I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare!’

identity (purple)

Celie:

• Starts novel with little sense of self and low self-worth, addressing her letters ‘Dear God’ and without signing her name - does not feel that she is worthy perhaps - ‘I know I'm not as pretty or as smart as Nettie’ (8)

• As novel develops, increase in sense of identity and confidence - shug and nettie as catalysts to this change - “Now I know Nettie alive I begin to strut a little bit.” (61)

Nettie:

• Nettie’s self-discovery as she goes to Africa - “I hadn’t realised I was so ignorant, Celie. The little I knew about my own self wouldn’t have filled a thimble” (55) - previously her understanding of herself had been shaped by colonialist ideas fed to her - “my real education began at that time” (55)

violence (streetcar: stella and stanley)

• ‘Stanley charges after Stella’ ‘She backs out of sight. He advances and disappears. There is the sound of a blow. Stella cries out. Blanche screams and runs into the kitchen.’ - violent confrontation between Stanley and Stella in scene 3 during poker.

violence (streetcar: blanche and stanley)

rising tension throughout the play, culminating in Stanley’s rape of Blanche

violence (streetcar: steve and eunice)

• minor characters, but the theme of violence extends to them too

• the violence here is more reflective of that of Sofia and Harpo - more of a sense of female rebellion and response to violence (i.e. the woman does not simply stand for violence against her)

‘[shrieking]: You hit me! I’m going to call the police.’

‘Angry roar, shouts, and overturned furniture'.’

‘Steve comes down nursing a bruise on his forehead and locks the door’

identity (purple: nettie)

violence (purple: celie and alfonso)

• novel opens with a gross act of violence - ‘he put his thing up gainst my hip and sort of wiggle it around. Then he grab hold my titties. Then he push his thing inside my pussy. When that hurt, I cry. He start to choke me, saying You better get used to it’

• Celie endures sexual violence to protect her sister from it - “I ast him to take me instead of Nettie while our new mammy sick.” (7)

violence (purple: celie and albert)

violence (purple: sofia and harpo)

• both sofia and harpo weaponise violence repeatedly

• however, the violence between these two is rather transgressive as it is not simply violence committed against a woman, but sofia does not stand for this and defends herself through violence too

‘They fighting like two mens’

‘Every piece of furniture is turned over’

‘She reach down and grab a piece of stove wood and whack him cross the eyes’

(they mirror steve and eunice in streetcar)

identity (purple: mary agnes (squeak) and sofia)

discrimination (race)

purple:

• In New York, response to nettie, corrinne, and samuel - “Only white people can ride in the beds and use the restaurant. And they have different toilets from coloured” (55) - segregation

• Treatment of sofia - “When I see Sofia I don’t know why she still alive. They crack her skull, they crack her ribs. They tear her nose loose on one side. They blind her in one eye. She swole from head to foot. Her tongue the size of my arm, it stick out tween her teef like a piece of rubber. She can’t talk. And she just about the color of a eggplant.” (37)

• Celie and Nettie’s real father - “Your daddy didn’t know how to git along, he say. White folks lynch him.” - “But the fact is you got to give ‘em something. Either your money, your land, your woman or your ass.” (69)

• It is even perpetuated by those who suffer as a result of it - Squeak - “his little yellowskin girlfriend” (36)

streetcar

• “Your home-place, the plantation” - Belle Reve’s connection with the old south and slavery, based on discrimination and subjugation

discrimination (gender)

purple:

• “Harpo as his daddy why he beat me. He say, Cause she my wife” (13) - violence enacted on women is default in a way

• Discrimination and thus violence is perpetuated by the protagonist - “Beat her, I say” (19) - Celie encourages Harpo to beat Sofia to control her

• THE OLINKA TRIBE - “the Olinka don’t believe in educating girls” (62)

streetcar:

• “There is the sound of a blow” - use of violence against women

• “Remember what Huey Long said - ‘Every Man is a King!’ And I am the king around here” (8) - Ironic use of this slogan as he uses it to assert own superiority/dominance, when it was actually intended with equality in mind

• Stanley’s rape of Blanche is a way of asserting his masculine power over her after her presence has upset his hegemony over the house

discrimination (culture)

purple:

• hvnaugv

streetcar

• Stanley’s Polish origins - “Pig - Polack - disgusting - vulgar - greasy” (8)

discrimination (sex and sexuality)

purple:

• “He beat me for dressing trampy but he do it to me anyway” (7)

• “I look at women, tho, cause I’m not scared of them” (5)

streetcar:

• Stanley’s rape of Blanche - “We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning” (10) - a sense of inevitability

• Allan, his perception and suicide as a result of his sexuality - “This beautiful and talented young man was a degenerate” (7)

• Mitch degrades Blanche for her sexuality - “You’re not clean enough to be in the house with my mother” (9)

insecurity (streetcar)

Blanche:

• insecure about appearance as her value stems from her beauty and men’s desire for her

• she does not want to be seen in the light, as it exposes her true appearance - ‘Turn that off! I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare!’

• Not just emotional insecurity, but a real sense of insecurity in her status as an unmarried, poor woman with nowhere left to go - “How strange that I should be called a destitute woman…” (10) - she does not want this exposed - illusion of Shep Huntleigh

Stanley:

• insecure in his own class perhaps - background obviously quite different from her husband’s - when Blanche arrives, this becomes more emphasised and underlying feelings of inferiority? - “What do you two think you are? A pair of queens?” (8)

• immigrant background - “I am not a Polack… But what I am is one hundred percent American, born and raised in the greatest country on earth and proud as hell of it, so don’t ever call me a Polack”

• turns to violence to assert himself due to insecurity and frustration, to reinstate his hegemony

insecurity (purple)

Celie:

• Insecure due to upbringing with Alfonso - “She ugly. He say.” (7); "I know I'm not as pretty or as smart as Nettie" (8)

• Insecurity due to her own intelligence - “I remember one time you said your life made you feel so ashamed you couldn’t even talk about it to God, you had to write it, bad as you thought your writing was.” (55)

• She has no decent clothes - “He say Why don’t you look decent? Put on something. But what I’m sposed to put on? I don’t have nothing.” (13)

• Shug’s presence and encouragement result in Celie becoming less insecure and standing up for herself more

• Because of her abuse, she has no sense of self or of her own worth

Harpo:

• Not the stereotypical, ‘ideal’ male that his father values. To try to fit into this conception of an authoritative man, he beats Sofia. - “You ever hit her? Mr ast. Harpo look down at his hands. Naw suh, he say low, embarrass.” (19); “He strong in body but weak in will. He scared.” (16)

• By the end of the novel, Harpo and Sofia have reversed gender roles - Sofia works and Harpo “can take care of anything come up at home” (89) - no longer restricted by expectations and insecurity about alignment with them

relationships between men and women (celie & stanley and stella)

• Both relationships - experiences of domestic violence - in purple, however, this is more explicit - “He clam on top of me and fuck and fuck, even when my head bandaged.” (- compared to streetcar where violence often transpires offstage - “He advances and disappears. There is a sound of a blow. Stella cries out.”

• Oppressive force of patriarchy - Celie is dominated not only by her husband, but by his children (Harpo) - “I spend my wedding day running from the oldest boy.” “He pick up a rock and laid my head open.” (9) - violence engrained - “Harpo ast his daddy why he beat me. Mr say, Cause she my wife. Plus, she stubborn.” (13)

• Women must submit, not be authoritative - “Since when do you give me orders” (Scene 2) - reminder of her role of 1940s housewife; at the start of purple, Celie lives her life very passively, almost separating herself from sentience to survive - “I make myself wood.” (13) - inanimate, no agency (reflected in the marriage over which she had no say - “He don’t ast How come you his wife? Nobody ast that.” (13))

relationships between men and women (steve & eunice and sofia & harpo)

• Not all women are willing to simply accept their abuse passively

• Steve and Eunice - “[shrieking] You hit me! I’m gonna call the police!” - threatens action

• Similarly, Sofia refuses to let Harpo hit her - “I’ll kill him dead before I let him beat me.” (21)

• Eunice also strays from the role of stereotypical 1940s housewife - “Tell Steve to get him a poor boy’s sandwich ‘cause nothing’s left here.” (Scene 1) - woman would usually be expected to provide for husband in this way

relationships (purple: celie and shug)

isolation (purple)

isolation (streetcar)

• Introduction to Blanche, she is immediately isolated from the others - “appearance is incongruous to this setting” (1)

• “I, I, I, took the blows in my face and my body! All of those deaths” (1) - isolated in the face of the loss of Belle Reve - she has suffered alone

• “You need somebody. And I need somebody, too. Could it be you and me Blanche?” (6) - Hope that the isolation will be remedied, yet hope extinguished

• Blanche’s bathing - self-isolation

• Plastic theatre conveys her isolation throughout - music - Versouviana and Blue piano - only she and the audience can hear it