Movie vs. Reading

For the most part the movie "A Streetcar named Desire," and the actual play seemed very similar to me. Most of the characters were portrayed in way that I had them imagined in my head. There were a few things though that didn't really match up with my interpretation of reading the play.

To me, the most different character was Blanche. Although she was crazy in both the play and the movie, I think she seemed a little bit more over the top in the movie. She didn't seem as confident as I thought she would. Although she was conceited and tried to be proper, in the movie she seemed almost timid. Her voice was more hushed and she would have pauses between her quick sentences. Also, rather than just annoyed by Stanley's rudeness it seemed that in the movie was a more scared of him. Obviously in the rape scene in both the book and the movie I could sense her fear, but to me she seemed more often scared in the movie.

I get this sense because all throughout the movie we see Blanche burying her head in Stella. Stella seems almost like a mother to her. Every time she gets upset (which is often) she's there crying in Stella's arms. This brings me to another interesting point about the movie. To me it seemed that Blanche and Stella were almost too close in the movie. Instead of Stella just standing up for her and waiting on her like she did in the book, I was surprised how much the girls touched each other and hugged each other. I just didn't the impression that they were so affectionate while reading the play.

I also think that Blanche is a lot more crazy in the movie. The music playing in her head really seems to affect her and it shows. While reading the play I just thought that she played it off as nothing when others were around. In the movie however one can really see her company look at her funny, like they know something is going on inside her head.

In the movie as a whole, the main difference was the ending. After Blanche was taken away I was just waiting for Stella to run back into Stanley's arms like she did in the play. Instead of this she took the baby and ran. I think that may have been more powerful of a statement, but it wasn't Stella like we knew her in the play. Instead of looking for her comfort in Stanley it's obvious that she realizes what he's done, and it doesn't seem like she's coming back.

Desire

"A Streetcar Named Desire," I think is a very interesting title first of all. The streetcar isn't really the important part though. I think that desire plays a big part in this play though for many characters. Blanche, being a main character that really sticks out. She is so needy and it's ridiculous. Blanche has lost everything that she knew and it seems that she really can't handle it. Having a rich upbringing really brought her down. When she goes to stay with Stella for a little while, it seems that it's more than just a visit. She ends up staying for a while, and the whole time it doesn't really seem like she grew as a person.
Blanche really couldn't believe that Stella lived in such a small place first of all. Both of them had such wealthy upbringings, but Stella had been able to get past that and live a happy life. Unfortunately Blanche couldn't, and she had such a strong desire to be how she used to be. The whole play she is critiquing things on and off, and trying to change things, and convince Stella that Stanley isn't up to her standards.
Although Blanche just wants to be back to Belle Reve there isn't any way, and she doesn't really seem to be trying either. She wants and wants but does nothing to get it. The only thing that she really seems to be good at is getting men. With her southern belle ideals in mind it is hard for her because she seems to have such a strong sexual desire. For example, although she never slept with Mitch it was defiantly in her mind. Their first date she asks him to sleep with her in French. Obviously Mitch didn't know what she said, and they didn't sleep together it is clear that she had that desire, and was fighting it.
All in all, I'm not really sure if I felt sorry for Blanche or if I even liked her as a character. She was very interesting and definitely was a big part of the play, but she was so needed that sometimes the reader/viewer seemed to get annoyed by her. she couldn't do anything for herself but wanted so much.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

While reading this I really enjoyed it. I just thought it was good, and I liked the story to it. It wasn't until after we had our class discussion that I really started thinking about the contradicts or the possibilities of it being a feminist novel. Although I could see how the book could be classified under a feminist novel it may not necessarily. There are also good masculine representations throughout the book as well as negative female representations. But, looking at it from the feminist side, I see Janie as a very strong, intelligent character that I liked.
Janie seemed to be always looking for more in her life and never really finding it. She was pushed aside by her first two husbands because she was a woman. A lot of this novel was focused on Janie's life while married to Jody and working in the store. That is when I really started to feel for Janie. I thought that she was going to be happy leaving Logan and I thought that Jody would make her feel good and treat her well. In his eyes he did do this. It seems like Jody was kind of proud of having Janie as his wife. She was young and beautiful and he could see other men's desires for her. He seemed to think of her more as a trophy wife. This also lead him to some jealousy. Because Janie had very unique and beautiful hair other's wanted to see it and touch it, but Jody felt that it was only for him. He made Janie hide the one thing that really made her stand out. Instead of treating her well, Jody seemed to have really drained Janie. She wasn't really allowed to speak her mind, he called her stupid/made her feel stupid often, he made her tie back her hair, and never really spent any quality time with her.
It seems that possibly at first Janie may have enjoyed her time with Jody. She flirted with him while she was married to Logan, and she left Logan for Jody. Unfortunately the happiness didn't last, and Hurston tells us that eventually they weren't intimate any more. It just seemed like Janie was kind of a robot that got punished when she went out of the "natural order" Jody had in mind for her. Even when Janie brought this to the attention of Jody he still didn't seem to get it, and was only bitter. Because he had made such a successful life for them financially and status wise he thought that Janie should have been happy. To him, he had given her all that money could buy and that any woman would love to be Janie. It wasn't just about the money to Janie though. She always wanted to know what love was like and if it was real, but she felt trapped in Jody's world of belittled women.
Once Janie found love with Tea Cake I really started to be happy for her. I liked how Hurston wrote about Janie using her older years when she was younger, and now that she was older she was younger at heart. I thought that was cute. The reader really sees how much Janie loves Tea Cake and Janie realizes what she had been missing out on in her previous marriages. I think that it's interesting how once Janie finds love she loses love for her grandmother. Now that she knows what her grandmother has kept from her she is angry. To Janie, love was important, not money, but to her grandmother, money was important. Perhaps the grandmother was just trying to do the best thing that she could for Janie and set her up for a good life, but she really caused Janie to waste a lot of time being miserable.

Jim Crow

Each little section in the writing I found myself underlining a lot of it. There was just so much in such a short piece. So much was wrong with the way things were while living under the Jim Crow laws. I thought this piece was a little bit weird. It almost had the theme of coming of age, but in a sad way. Throughout the years, the narrator learned how to act so that he could live his life as safely as possible. He starts out this piece with his fight with the white boys. When he expects comfort from his mother, and gets a whipping the reader I feel sympathy for him. I think the mother was extremely harsh and she didn’t seem very understanding. Although she may have been doing so in order to protect him, he was just a boy and to me it didn’t seem like that was the right way to go.

Throughout the rest of the piece, the reader sees that narrator learn what to say and what not to say in order to please the whites. He doesn’t always do so successfully though. When he firsts get a job for an optical company the boss told him “Boy, how would you like to try to learn something around here?” The narrator was very pleased by this he thought “working my way up. Even negroes have those visions.” From that point it seems like the narrator isn’t going to have things so bad and that he is going to have a decent job and do well. It was so ridiculous how angry the other white workers were at when he finally asked about moving up. They must have felt pretty threatened by that because they didn’t want him learning about a “white man’s work.” Eventually when that job falls through it is because of a ridiculous reason. Apparently he wasn’t respectful to one of the white workers, and got backed into a corner. They told him “When you are working for white folks, you got to stay in your place if you want to keep working.”

The narrator learned many other lessons throughout his life that would help him stay alive. For example, if a black person is being punished, they are lucky to survive, or escape without rape no matter how severe a beating, if they escape death than they are lucky. Also, he learned that he must always be respectful; yes sirs were always necessary when talking to a white person. There must be no bastardies, there must be no looking at a white woman the wrong way, and no reading (too much of an education was threatening). Basically, the blacks were legally free, but definitely not considered free. Everything that they did had to be watched carefully, and everything they wanted to say they had to make sure they chose their words wisely. By the end of this piece the reader can see that the narrator has overcome a lot of obstacles throughout his life, and that he has had to alter his way of life in order to fit into what the white people wanted from him.