Stanley Kowalski

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Stanley Kowalski

Stanley Kowalski is a fictional character in Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams was an American playwright who received many of the top theatrical awards. He moved to New Orleans in 1939 and changed his name to "Tennessee", the state of his father's birth....
' play A Streetcar Named Desire.

ley lives in the French Quarter

French Quarter

The French Quarter, also known as Vieux Carr?, is the oldest and most famous New Orleans neighborhoods in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana....
of New Orleans with his wife, Stella

Stella Kowalski

Stella Kowalski is one of the main characters in Tennessee Williams' Play A Streetcar Named Desire . She is the sister of central character Blanche DuBois ....
(née DuBois.) A working class

Working class

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Stanley Kowalski is a fictional character in Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams

In the play

Stanley lives in the French Quarter

French Quarter

The French Quarter, also known as Vieux Carr?, is the oldest and most famous New Orleans neighborhoods in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana....
of New Orleans with his wife, Stella

Stella Kowalski

Stella Kowalski is one of the main characters in Tennessee Williams' Play A Streetcar Named Desire . She is the sister of central character Blanche DuBois ....
(née DuBois.) A working class

Working class

Working class is a term used in academic sociology and in ordinary conversation to describe, depending on context and speaker, those employed in specific fields or types of work....
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 often displays 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

Ape

An ape is any member of the Hominoidea superfamily of primates. In less scientific language, it has various meanings, although it often excludes humans....
", while Stanley is enraged at what he sees as a constant reminder that he is not 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 mortgage

Mortgage

A mortgage is the transfer of an interest in property to a lender as a security for a debt - usually a loan of money. While a mortgage in itself is not a debt, it is the lender's security for a debt....
d. He also learns that she was paid to leave Mississippi

Mississippi

Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Deep South of the United States. Jackson, Mississippi is the state capital and largest city. The state's name comes from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, and takes its name from the Anishinaabe language word misi-ziibi ....
to quell gossip

Gossip

Gossip is idle talk or rumor, especially about the personal or private affairs of others. It forms one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and other variations into the information thus transmitted....
about her many affairs, which she began after her husband, a closeted

Closeted

Closeted or "in the closet" are phrases generally refer to undisclosed human sexual behavior, sexual orientation or gender identity. The most common of these concern lesbian, gay, bisexuality and transgender people as well as people who engage in kink sexual behaviors such as BDSM or fetishes....
homosexual, committed suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the intentional taking of one's own life. Many dictionaries also note the metaphorical sense of "willful destruction of one's self-interest"....
. 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

Fantasy (psychology)

A fantasy is a situation imagination by an individual or group, which does not correspond with reality but expresses certain desires or aims of its creator....
of better times, when he returns home. He makes a crude, drunken pass at her, which she rebuffs, disgusted. Enraged, Stanley overpowers and rape

Rape

Rape, also referred to as sexual assault, is an assault by a person involving sexual intercourse with or sexual penetration of another person without that person's consent....
s her. This final assault

Assault

Assault is a crime of violence against another human. In some jurisdictions, including Australia and New Zealand, assault refers to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, while in other jurisdictions, such as the United States, assault may refer only to the threat of violence caused by an immediate show of fo...
on what she had left of her dignity sends Blanche over the edge into a nervous breakdown

Nervous Breakdown

Nervous Breakdown was the first Extended play#The 7" EP in punk rock by the American hardcore punk band Black Flag . It was released in 1978 and was the inaugural release on SST Records....
. Weeks later, Stella has Blanche committed to a mental institution at Stanley's insistence.

In other media

He was most famously portrayed by Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando, Jr. was an Academy Award-winning American actor whose body of work spanned over half a century. He is widely considered one of the greatest actors of all time, and was named the fourth AFI's 100 Years......
in the play's initial Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 39 large professional theaters with 500 seats or more located in the Theatre District, New York in Manhattan, New York City....
performance as well as the 1951 film adaptation

A Streetcar Named Desire (film)

A Streetcar Named Desire is a film adaptation of the A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. It was directed by Elia Kazan, who had also directed the original stage production, and stars Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden; all but Leigh were chosen from the Broadway theatre cast of the play, while Leigh had...
. Since then, he has been played by Treat Williams

Treat Williams

Treat Williams is an American actor who has appeared on film, stage and television over the course of his prolific career. From 2002 to 2006, he was the star of the popular television series Everwood....
and Alec Baldwin

Alec Baldwin

Alexander Rae Baldwin III is an United States film and television actor. Working as Alec Baldwin, he has appeared in prominent films such as Beetlejuice, as Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October , in the Martin Scorsese films The Aviator and The Departed....
in, respectively, the 1984 and 1995 made for TV adaptations.