Stanley, a Polish man in his late 20s, appears to be a nice guy at the beginning of the play; he loves his wife and treats his friends nicely. He invites friends over for social events at his place and would hang out with them at the bar for bowling and other activities (scene 1-2). However, as the play progresses, the true character of Stanley is revealed, given readers a fuller account of how he is. He roughly dresses in blue denim work clothes most of the time. He possesses an animalistic physical vigor that tends to raise his voice and is always in the mood for action. He can be very violent with words; he yells at others. He enjoys gambling, bowling, and drinking (scene 2).
He has very little respect for women; especially Stella and Blanche. He physically assaults Stella while she is pregnant, but somehow still deeply in love with her (scene 3). He harasses Blanche and invades her privacy by digging into her past. For example, he learns from Shaw that the townspeople considered Blanche as a disgraced individual and the school removed her teaching position due to a relationship with a seventeen-year-old kid. He gives Blanche a one-way bus ticket back to Laurel as a symbolic birthday gift that depicts his uneasiness and animosity of her presence in his house. In addition, he ruins her relationship with Mitch by unsympathetically revealing to Mitch her secrets and ugly characteristics (scene 7). Overall, he represents a serious man with an animalistic physical vigor without remorse as he tries to reassert his control and dominance of his household.
However, Kazan’s 1951 film of this play depicts a different side of Stanley. Stanley still possesses his manly characteristics as shown in the play. Unexpectedly, Stanley is more submissive in the film. The posted video clip shows the scene where he kneels and begs Stella for forgiveness when she comes out from the room to see him; this is not a characteristic of Stanley because he is a straight-down-to-earth man, serious and aggressive. This scene shows a shift in power and dominance; at the moment, he is no longer a man in control. He cries with tears of joy as he hugs Stella as if she possesses something that dismantles his ego and tranquilizes his animalistic physical vigor.
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Your analysis is interesting, and makes a lot of good points. But you kind of just glaze over each of the points, you should spend more time developing each point. You use good textual support for your claims, and I also like that you added how he appears in the movie. Showing that his character is interpreted differently by different people. Although I feel you should have focused more so on your own interpretation of his character.
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