Say you have a family in which there are two girls or two boys. Did it ever make you wonder if they were anything alike or if they were polar opposites? I can tell you that it is not as rare as it would seem. In Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire we are thrown into a story where two sisters are just that. They are so different that they seem to come from two different families.
Let's start off by going oldest to youngest shall we?
Blanche Dubois is a girl who needs some help. She grew up taking care of her parents and has even had the unfortunate responsibility to take care of her family's failing plantation. Also, she is dealing with the fact that her husband went and killed himself. And we were wondering why she went insane. Though she has had all of this responsibility on her shoulders she manages to pull through but she does need to get away from her present surroundings and go to her younger sister for help. She wants to give up the responsibility part of her life and turn it over Stella.
Stella Kowlaski is a free spirt that has left her past behind her. Without a want or a care, Stella is married to Stanley Kowlaski who, like Stella is also a free spirt. Moving away from the responsibility that her sister has undertaken, Stella ellaborates upon the life that she and her husband have made for each other whenever she writes to her sister. But when her life is meshed with Blanche's one can see the difference between the two immediately. For instance, Blanche puts much stock behind her appearance where Stella does not.
One can see that these two characters care a great deal for one another, however age and differences will always divide a siblings. The difference here is that Stella is much more down to earth than her sister and Blanche has just given up on life to the point that she loses her mind.
Jerz: Am Lit II (EL 267): A Streetcar Named Desire