To Stay or Not to Stay: Stella, Alison and Their Subordination in Patriarchy in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire and John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger

• Published in: Canadian Journal of Language and Literature Studies Vol. 5; no. 2; p. 31
• Main Authors: Haque, Salma, Sharif, Yasin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Waterloo MATIS Translation Services 2025
• Subjects: American literature; Contrastive analysis; Families & family life; Feminism; Husbands; Literary characters; Patriarchy; Spouses; Williams, Tennessee (Thomas Lanier Williams) (1911-1983); Wives; United States > US
• ISSN: 2564-2979; 2564-2979
• DOI: 10.53103/cjlls.v5i2.203

A Streetcar Named Desire and Look Back in Anger are unquestioningly the most significant works of Tennessee Williams and John Osborne. Performance wise they are also accepted globally. The heroes, polish Stanley Dubois and the English Jimmy porter are also known characters in world drama despite their abusive languages towards their wives. Although the dramatists are from two different countries, both stories deal with the same issue: the helpless existence of women in patriarchy. This study shows two prominent literary wives, Stella and Alison of A Streetcar Named Desire and Look Back in Anger, whose family statuses are unequal to their husbands. The wives epitomize their helplessness in a patriarchal world. They live in two-room apartments. Stella socializes with her upstairs neighbors Eunice and his wife, and is close with the surrounding people. Alison escapes herself from her abusive husband into ironing. Both the wives tolerate the mood swings of their loud, mean husbands who are numeric, but Alison, in her pregnant state, cannot keep her cool after the arrival of her actress friend Helena Charles. Later on, after having a miscarriage and her loneliness in her parental house, she comes back to Jimmy. Stella has lost her parents and the only widow elder sister Blanche has been forced to come to her house as she is jobless and the family property Belle Reeve is no more for the sisters. The practical Stella never thinks of leaving her husband for survival issue. Alison does not seek independence and self-definition as these great plays do not advocate their rights, and the wives do not challenge the patriarchy. Instead, they suffer from the injustice of a violent and unequal world and do not struggle hard to achieve a better world for themselves. The aim of the article is to show Stella and Alison's subordination, helplessness in patriarchy through comparative and contrastive analysis and feminist theory.