The Reluctant Fundamentalist Notes

Throughout The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Hamid shows how people judge on another based on characteristics like clothing, skin colour and their mannerisms. This is shown by "a speaker of your language" spoken by Changez to the American listener, this 'soft' racism in the first page of the book really sets the tone for the rest of the book. Within the rest of the book there are other 'soft' racism comments, for example when they travel to Greece together, while not rude or disrespectful to him, his friends think of him as an exotic “pet”; even Erica is attracted to Changez because he is “different.” This is in reference to his Pakistani heritage which enforces how different his appearance is in comparison to their persons.


Changez encounters more overt and hostile forms of racism in America. He’s called an 'Arab', though he’s Pakistani, and is detained at an airport and harassed by a bigoted security officer. Changez refuses to “cave in” during these confrontations, in defiance of what he sees as their profound unfairness and viciousness, deliberately changes his behaviour and appearance to appear even more obviously foreign. In the novel Hmaid shows how racism helps to create the very thing it fears. In Changez’s case, racism ultimately drives him from his adopted country of the United States back to Pakistan. The racism and prejudice stemming from the fear of fundamentalism leads him, a lover of America, to become at minimum more critical of the United States, and, possibly, a fundamentalist.

How does Williams create a sense of tension and drama for the audience in this extract (scene 4 monologue)? (30 marks)

How does Williams create a sense of tension and drama for the audience in this extract(scene 4 monologue)? You should analyse language closely and the way it is crafted to create effects.(30 marks)

During scene 4 a lot of drama is caused within Blanche's speech, while in conversation with Stella. What makes this scene dramatic to the audience, is the use of dramatic irony. The fact that the audience knows that Stanley can hear the conversation makes the reader anxious.

John McRae lecture notes: 5

The man at the end of scene 5 is a new kind of masculinity.

All senses are explored in this scene

Simple scene

'temporary magic' key phrase in this scene.

Astrology, Blanche is a Virgo 'suggestion to virginity'.

'flamingo' in the south means 'whore' and 'this man named shaw' says he met her in the Hotel Flamingo.

The audience remain beside Blanche.

'I have seen it and smelled it' the use of the senses is powerful because it makes it all more real and revealing. The way she is in denial, stresses the information she doesn't want to reveal.

'I never was hard or self sufficient enough' this line shows how her layers if secrecy are being broken down by Stanley.

'make a little- temporary magic just in order to pay for - one night's shelter!' mentions that she took money, suggests she had been a prostitute of some sort, in order to survive.

'caught in the storm' Blanche is caught in the centre and she realises she has to find some sort of refuge or shelter.

Pure tragedy, a character from a high social position, normlay a man, falls becasue of their fatal flaw.

Catharsis, the release of the emotions of fear and pity, Arastotle's theory.

John McRae lecture notes: 4

'There is confusion of street cries like a choral chant.' indicates that all the outside noises, lights, shadows and happenings are choral commentary saying that 'life goes on'.

Life goes on for Blanche, tragic, mental difficulties, drinking problem, she still survives. Question if its a tragedy. Critics say, the tragedy is the unfulfilled desire. Desire is the key word, the main focus of the play.

Shep Huntleigh, important in the role of Blanche's inner battle. We don't know if hes real, or imagined, however these men and Blanche thinking they will help her, is something that keeps her going. They keep Blanche hopeful. The scene with Shep mentioned is questioned to be either fantasy or reality. The audience realise that, Shep doesn't exist, but Blanche's husband does exist.

'you saw him at his worst last night.' (Stella)
'On the contrary, I saw him at his best!' (Blanche)
Blanche tells Stella how to live with a man. 'job' word implies money, a dig at how Stella is almost paid to be with Stanley, because she can't support herself.

'Beastiel' really shows the contrast between having to express emotions frequently or having the Belle Reve, Laurel approach and bottling your emotions.

'Survivor of the Stone Age...' 'and you here waiting for him.' Stella has accepted her role. Blanche never found a man she can accept that role with.

'the trains passing' can be referred to be a sexual symbol.

'Flag' the flag of the southern state, the flag is still flown. Tennessee, he wants to highlight that feelings are permitted.

Genral 'A Streetcar NAmed Desire' notes

Southern Belle

To literally translate the term ‘Southern Belle’ its said ‘belle’ is derived from the French word belle, to mean 'beautiful.' A southern Belle is a stock character representing a young woman of the American Deep South's upper socioeconomic class. Some define them as coy, wilful, selfish, and totally dependent on the men in their life. In reality the wealthy young girls in the South 9Southern Belles) were generally well educated in the areas of reading, writing, arithmetic, music, art, and the French language. Learning to sew and do needlework were also an important part of their education since the clothes were hand sewn back then. The purpose of their education was to prepare them for an advantageous marriage.

New Orleans

New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. New Orleans was founded by the French May 7, 1718. The city itself is located in the South-East of Louisiana right by the Mississippi river.

Immigration into the USA during the 20^th century

After the depression of the 1890s, immigration jumped from a low of 3.5 million in that decade to a high of 9 million in the first decade of the new century. Immigrants from Northern and Western Europe continued coming as they had for three centuries, but in decreasing numbers. After the 1880s, immigrants increasingly came from Eastern and Southern European countries, as well as Canada and Latin America. By 1910, Eastern and Southern Europeans made up 70 percent of the immigrants entering the country. After 1914, immigration dropped off because of the war, and later because of immigration restrictions imposed in the 1920s.

Plays

Tennessee Williams has written 35 plays. And like them, he was troubled and self-destructive, an abuser of alcohol and drugs. He was awarded four Drama Critic Circle Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His plays have a common, realistic theme. Williams produces hard hitting truthful stories that don’t sugar cote real life events to be something in the style of Hollywood. His work is hard hitting and emotional, and that’s what was loved. He really showed lives how they were, and he never avoided the unspoken truth.

Quotes:

{Blanche}:

“What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains.”

“He was a boy, just a boy, when I was a very young girl. When I was sixteen, I made the discovery - love. All at once and much, much too completely. It was like you suddenly turned a blinding on something that had always been half in shadow, that's how it struck the world for me. But I was unlucky. Deluded.”

“They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and transfer to one called Cemeteries, and ride six blocks and get off at—Elysian Fields!”

“There are thousands of papers, stretching back over hundreds of years, affecting Belle Reve as, piece by piece, our improvident grandfathers and father and uncles and brothers exchanged the land for their epic fornications—to put it plainly! . . . The four-letter word deprived us of our plantation, till finally all that was left—and Stella can verify that!—was the house itself and about twenty acres of ground, including a graveyard, to which now all but Stella and I have retreated.”

{Stanley}:

"Pig—Polak—disgusting—vulgar—greasy!—them kind of words have been on your [Stella's] tongue and your sister's too much around here! What do you two think you are? A pair of queens?" (8.14)

"Stell, it's gonna be all right after she [Blanche] goes and after you've had the baby. It's gonna be all right again between you and me the way it was. You remember that way that it was? Them nights we had together? God, honey, it's gonna be sweet when we can make noise in the night the way that we used to and get the colored lights going with nobody's sister behind the curtains to hear us!" (8.55)

 

{GENERAL NOTES AND SUMMARY}

Major conflict · Blanche DuBois, an aging Southern debutante, arrives at her sister’s home in New Orleans hoping to start a new life after losing her ancestral mansion, her job, and her reputation in her hometown of Laurel, Mississippi. Blanche’s brother-in-law, a macho working-class guy named Stanley Kowalski, is so filled with class resentment that he seeks to destroy Blanche’s character in New Orleans as well. His cruelty, combined with Blanche’s fragile, insecure personality, leaves her mentally detached from reality by the play’s end.

Rising action · Blanche immediately rouses the suspicion of Stanley, who (wrongly) suspects Blanche of swindling Stella out of her inheritance. Blanche grows to despise Stanley when she sees him drunkenly beat her pregnant sister. Stanley permanently despises Blanche after he overhears her trying to convince Stella to leave Stanley because he is common. Already suspicious of Blanche’s act of superiority, Stanley researches Blanche’s past. He discovers that in Laurel Blanche was known for her sexual promiscuity and for having an affair with a teenage student. He reports his findings to Blanche’s suitor, Mitch, dissuading Mitch from marrying Blanche.

Climax · After Stanley treats Blanche cruelly during her birthday dinner, giving her a bus ticket back to Laurel as a present, Stella goes into labor. She and Stanley depart for the hospital, leaving Blanche alone in the house. Mitch arrives, drunk, and breaks off his relationship with Blanche. Blanche, alone in the apartment once more, drowns herself in alcohol and dreams of an impossible rescue. Stanley returns to the apartment from the hospital and rapes Blanche.

Falling action · Weeks after the rape, Stella secretly prepares for Blanche’s departure to an insane asylum. She tells her neighbor Eunice that she simply couldn’t believe Blanche’s accusation that Stanley raped her. Unaware of reality, Blanche boasts that she is leaving to join a millionaire suitor. When the doctor arrives, Blanche leaves after a minor struggle, and only Stella and Mitch, who sits in the kitchen with Stanley’s poker players, seem to express real remorse for her.

Themes · Fantasy’s inability to overcome reality; the relationship between sex and death; dependence on men

Short summary of Arthur Miller’s Introduction for ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’

From Miller’s introduction I understand that the Williams’ didn’t just create a play using everyday words, he produced the play from ‘language flowing from the soul’ this extensive and dramatic comparison really accentuates the way that the play spoke to people. We know that in the first showing of the play ‘the play and production had thrown open doors to another world of theatre.’ The high praise from this quote simply reassures the reader how simple ground breaking the performance was, it’s a work of art that ‘left one excited and elevated’.

Honestly I think his introduction could be cut short to only the last one and two and a half pages, however, the intence detail he went into with description only highlights the amazing depiction Williams used to form his words into this play formed from poetic lines.

Study notes 'Echo'

Eyes:

• The speaker asks that the lover comes back with ‘eyes as bright / As sunlight on a stream' (line 3). This image suggests both youthfulness and good, accurate vision. It also works to merge the beloved with the natural environment and convey ideas of reflection. 

The door:

• The speaker imagines that ‘in Paradise', all eyes are fixed on the ‘slow door' opening and letting in souls, which hints at the potential reunion of lovers
• Several of Rossetti's devotional poems, such as Despised and Rejected, use the image of the door to depict the entrance to heaven. However, in Revelation, the image of heaven that is given is one of security, rest and peace. 

Water:

• The stream - In addition to alluding to ideas of reflection, the description of the brightness of the lover's eyes as ‘sunlight on a stream' suggests tranquility, peace and movement. Just as a stream glimmers in the sun and runs towards a river or the sea, so too, does the speaker wish that his/her eyes would gleam brightly and move towards her
• Tears - The speaker asks that his/her lover would come back to his/her ‘in tears'. As well as expressing sorrow, tears can express deep, heart-felt emotion. The hope that the lover would come in tears suggests anticipation that s/he would demonstrate his passion and love by reciprocating and sharing in the speaker's sorrow
• Brimful - The speaker describes the souls in paradise as being ‘brimful of love'. The word brimful is usually associating with an overflow of water. By describing souls as overflowing with love, Rossetti may be drawing on the words that Jesus spoke to a Samaritan woman as she drew water from a well, declaring that he himself is the Water of Life. He told her that, whereas everyone who drinks regular water will inevitably be thirsty again: ‘Those who drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life'. {John 4:14 TNIV}

The tone is one of longing throughout. From the first repetition of the word ‘come' to the final expression of desire that the speaker can breathe life back into the beloved, the speaker's attention is focused solely on his/her love. Longing is expressed through the repeated call to the beloved and language associated with desire.