To desire something, or someone, brings with it pain and pleasure in equal measure. Discuss the significance of desire in two texts you have studied.

Despite the 38 years between publication, the two contrasting texts of the play ‘A streetcar named Desire’ and the dystopian novel, ‘The Handmaids Tale’ both explore the theme of the juxtaposing emotions that regard the feelings of desire, and how it can bring pain and pleasure in certain measures. Atwood employs a sense of conflicting feelings throughout the novel, by which the protagonist Offred experiences a plethora of incidents which leads to her character being portrayed as experiencing a lack of security for herself, yet also presents her as revitalised in other situations. Similarly, in Williams’s play, ‘A Streetcar named Desire’, the theme of desire and how it can indeed complicate life is infiltrated as a main motif throughout, suggesting that the characters in the play have been constructed to parallel the emotions of pain and pleasure that Williams himself may have experienced in his life, such as allusions to his family situation within the story himself.The character of Blanche as a main figure in the play portrays the pain and pleasure of the emotions of desire as the first introduction that the audience are greeted with upon her character is when she states the declarative “they told me to take a streetcar named Desire”. This is important as not only does it illustrate the main theme of desire in the play, but also symbolises Williams’s use of dramatic irony to foreshadow to the audience that Blanche is characterized to be mentally unstable, and the actress playing her would be able to employ paralinguistic features to present the “faintly hysterical manner” she has, and would be able to understand the cracks beneath her façade, as well as the actress being able to employ intonation to advocate the pain she lifestyle. Williams may have chosen for the character of Blanche to be at the forefront of the play with regards to the mental declination she experiences to allude to his sister, Rose, who had been suffering from mental illness and underwent a prefrontal lobotomy, which left her institutionalized, much like the ending for Blanche’s character as the dénouement is completed.  Williams also may have chosen for the third person, collective pronoun “they” to be used to present her character as a person who has indeed experienced isolation, as it infers that she is presented to have been alienated from her past life perhaps due to her promiscuous behaviour and therefore desires a new life. Furthermore, the character of Blanche is presented to be increasingly desperate for new desires, such as having an inappropriate encounter with a “young man”. The encounter whereby the boy shakes his head “violently and edges hastily away” alludes to, not only the fact that Blanche lost her job due to the inappropriate manner of her behaviour, but also the abhorrent lust she has for approval. The dynamic verbs employed by Williams such as “hastily” and “violently” signifies that the young man is attempting to leave quickly, yet Blanche continues to “approach” in a predatorial manner, contributing to the semantic field of animalistic imagery that is created in the play throughout, as well as to allow the audience to understand the position Blanche is in as a person, who appears to have her “own desires that draw her to Stanley (ie – sexual promiscuity) like a moth to the light she avoids, even hates, yet yearns for” (Shirley Galloway) suggesting that even with her own sisters brother, she can’t physically, or indeed mentally, control her mind correctly to stay away from trouble. To a modern reader,  Williams’s presentation between of interaction between Blanche and the young boy would be perceived as extremely inappropriate and vulgar, particularly when she declares to him “you make my mouth water”, further addressing the unsuitable nature that Blanche’s character has, and the staging conventions created by the director of the play and the actress of Blanche would indeed be able to mould the scene to create an uncomfortable tone to the atmosphere, such as creating a close space between the characters in order to truly illustrate the indecorous persona Blanche has. Much like Blanche, the character of Offred is presented to experience the opposing emotions of pain and pleasure in equal measure, and the first-person metanarrative taken through the eyes of Offred allows the reader to understand the inherent yearning that the character experiences. The reader knows very little about Luke, especially the beginning of their relationship together, apart from the fact that he managed to “pry himself loose” from his former marriage and continue his relationship with Offred. The fact that their relationship started as an affair suggests that their desires brought pain and pleasure to different people in equal measure, with the dynamic verb “pry” symbolising the malignant nature of affairs and how people’s desires can overthrow their moral attitudes. Ironically, the private meetings in the hotel that Offred and Luke first surreptitiously met in becomes ‘Jezebels’ further implying the perception Atwood may be hinting at as a result of dangerous desires, resulting in pain, yet also pleasure. The statement could easily be exemplified into their relationship as Atwood displays Offred to be a desirable character, who states that she wanted to “feel Luke lying beside me”. The declarative statement suggests that their relationship did indeed have pleasurable sexual aspects to it, as well as Offred’s character being aware of the true love that they have for each other, as she wants to be “valued”. The fact that Atwood has chosen for Offred to have desire to be “valued” is exceedingly significant for the reader, as it could mean the pleasure of being respected, but could also suggest the objectification of women, and how women have become conditioned to be desperate for admiration, and to be a prized possession for men. Atwood suggests this concept even before the Gilead regime, when the character of Offred has a flashback to when Luke “liked to choose the meat” they were going to eat, as “men needed meat more than women did”. This presents the patriarchal society even before Gilead, as the use of the symbolism of meat suggests extremely masculine imagery, as if Luke’s character was a primitive male, who was desperate for meat in order to survive.