Alienation in 'A Streetcar Named Desire' and 'As I Lay Dying' - Essay Example

Faulkner writes about Dewey Dell, a young woman who finds herself pregnant and cannot deal with her mother’s death because she is consumed with her situation. The female roles in life and the general dysfunction of family life are themes that Williams and Faulkner share as they discuss social community and alienation in classic works of American fiction. In the play “A Streetcar Named Desire” the character of Blanche is both boastful and full of myths about her life in order to cope with her sense of isolation.

Blanche is unmarried, and during the time period of the play is considered an old maid because she is in her 30s and without a spouse. Instead of giving into the darkness of her life, Blanche constructs a belief system about the world where she idealizes what she thinks should be the world. Blanche sees Stanley as a failure in her world, his uncouth mannerisms and rough exterior beneath her. As she sees it, her world is a place of honor and position and he is a reminder that the world is rough and without mercy.

In William Faulkner’s novel “As I Lay Dying” the story revolves around a dysfunctional family where in trying to satisfy the wishes of the dead mother, selfishness seeps through the seeming self-less act of undertaking the task to take her to her final resting place. The primary theme that can be found in the story is that in life, essentially, everyone is alone with the problems that they endure and in the end, are alone when they die. The family dynamic within the story clearly outlines the effects of that isolation and that dysfunction is the norm, not the exception.

Sex is a powerful element in both of the stories. The theme of the vulnerability of the unmarried woman is written clearly in both texts. There seems to be some disdain, an almost sneer that comes from both authors as they show how sexuality is a weapon, a medium for exchange, and place of weakness for women who are unmarried. The isolation from community through the lack of a marital bond is made clearly through the experiences of Blanche and Dewey Dell. They are both alienated from their own situations because they have no power within them.

Blanche is alone, but desperately wants to not feel that loneliness which has her isolated and alienated from her family. Dewey Dell is alone in her pregnancy with no one to support her situation. Both women represent weakness in women and the events that befall them are in many ways blamed on them. Blanche has constructed a world to make up for the one that she was given. Blanche had fallen in love with a boy that she married only to find out that he was gay. She had told him she was disgusted with him for it and as a result, he had killed himself.

This reality that she shares with Mitch is where her alienation from the world is defined. She says “And then the searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been any light stronger than this kitchen candle” (Williams 68). The wonder that had entered her life through falling in love and being married had ended tragedy so no matter what she did it would never be any brighter. She is isolated from those who have not experienced this tragedy so she constructs happiness through frills and perfume in order to feel as if she has a place in the world.

Stanley is a symbol of the realities of