The past will always have an effect on the present. This is especially shown within literature where previous events will change a character’s actions, attitudes, and values. In A Streetcar Named Desire, every character has a past that dictates their present and future. The character Blanche is primarily shown to further prove this point. Her past entire affects her present and future whether it be for the positive or negative. Blanche is seen as insane throughout the play due to her haunting past. She frequently speaks of her young husband, never specifying a name or age, let alone why he is no longer in the picture. Hearing of her husband causes a realization that she lusts after young men due to her husband being gone. Blanche comes to …show more content…
Again, Blanche’s husband killed himself while they were both very young, traumatizing Blanche in the long run. Still feeling the guilt of her husband’s death, Blanche plays a role as a constant victim or as though she was never guilty of indecency. The fact that her husband had committed suicide while they were so young pushes Blanche to live in her own mental state where she is young still. This causes her to be so wrapped up in her appearance that she will not even go out in daylight or allow house lights to be bright in the room. Blanche requires constant reassurance that she looks young and beautiful from everyone she encounters, especially men. It is dangerous for Blanche to rely on men to fuel her self worth because it makes her believe prostituting herself out is okay despite it annihilating her reputation. Her games with hiding and or lying about her age and appearance are detrimental to her relationship with Mitch as well as her self worth. As usual, Blanche acts as though she is a victim despite her boldly lying to a man who seemed as though he was a gentleman and would possibly marry her in the future. It is important to note that Mitch discovers Blanche’s prior prostitution gig. Despite this happening before Mitch and Blanche had even met it was still unacceptable to Mitch and it destroyed their relationship. Mitch no longer wanted Blanche
How do Blanche Dubois’s interactions with males in A Streetcar Named Desire lead to her self-destruction?
Blanche filled the void her husband left by having sex with random, younger men. She was drawn to them because they reminded her of her husband, Allen. Blanche states that “intimacies with strangers was all I seemed to fill my empty heart with” (Williams 128). Even with the countless encounters with strange men, Blanche never found anyone to fill the void. She tried to use the intimacies to distract her from her husband's death. The death of her husband enforced a new level of madness upon Blanche. She became more promiscuous as a result, which further demonstrates why the suicide of her husband was an illuminating moment in the play and how her internal struggle caused by her husband’s death changed her into a sex
Identity in Contemporary American Drama – Between Reality and Illusion Tennessee Williams was one of the most important playwrights in the American literature. He is famous for works such as “The Glass Menagerie” (1944), “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1947) or “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)”. As John S. Bak claims: “Streetcar remains the most intriguing and the most frequently analyzed of Williams’ plays.” In the lines that follow I am going to analyze how the identity of Blanche DuBois, the female character of his play, “A Streetcar Named Desire”, is shaped. Firstly, we learn from an interview he gave, that the character of Blanche has been inspired from a member of his family.
The loss of her beloved husband kept Blanche’s mental state in the past, back when she was 16, when she only cared about her appearance. That is why at the age of 30 she avoids bright lights that reveal her wrinkles. Blanche does not want to remember the troubles of her past and therefore she attempts to remain at a time when life was simpler. This is reinforced by the light metaphor which illustrates how her life has darkened since Allan’s suicide and how the light of love will never shine as brightly for Blanche ever again. Although, throughout the play Blanche sparks an interest in Mitch, a friend of Stanley’s, who reveals in Scene three that he also lost a lover once, although his lover was taken by an illness, not suicide, and therefore he still searches for the possibility of love, when Blanche aims to find stability and security.
During early times men were regarded as superior to women. In Tennessee William’s play, “A Streetcar Named Desire”, Stanley Kowalski, the work’s imposing antagonist, thrives on power. He embodies the traits found in a world of old fashioned ideals where men were meant to be dominant figures. This is evident in Stanley’s relationship with Stella, his behavior towards Blanche, and his attitude towards women in general. He enjoys judging women and playing with their feelings as well.
The moment their eyes first meet, there seems to be an immediate attraction between Blanche and Mitch, causing them to take a “certain interest” in one another. After their first close encounter while the poker game is taking place, Blanche notices that Mitch is not like Stanley and the others. Telling Stella, “That one seems—superior to the others…I thought he had a sort of sensitive look” (Williams 52), Blanche takes interest in Mitch’s perceived sensitivity, and is immediately attracted
Blanche could not accept her past and overcome it. She was passionately in love with Alan; but after discovering that he was gay, she could not stomach the news. When she revealed how disgusted she was, it prompted Alan to commit suicide. She could never quite overcome the guilt and put it behind her. Blanche often encountered flashbacks about him. She could hear the gun shot and polka music in her head. After Alan’s death, she was plagued by the deaths of her relatives. Stella moved away and did not have to deal with the agony Blanche faced each day. Blanche was the one who stuck it out with her family at Belle Reve where she had to watch as each of her remaining family members passed away. “I took the blows in my face and my body! All of those deaths! The long parade to the graveyard! Father, Mother! Margaret, that dreadful way! You just came home in time for the funerals, Stella. And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. Funerals are quiet, but deaths—not always” (Scene 1, page 1546). Blanche lost Belle Reve because of all the funeral expenses. Belle Reve had been in her family for generations, and it slipped through her fingers while she watched helplessly. Blanche’s anguish caused her loneliness. The loneliness fueled her abundance of sexual encounters. Her rendezvous just added to her problems and dirtied her rep...
Blanche had a desire for sex in general to cope with her divorce and the loss of her family; she just needed to feel loved. Stanley expressed his hidden desire for Blanche by being cruel to her through the whole story, and then having sex with her. Mitch showed his desire for Blanche by asking her to marry him. Stella had a desire for Stanley’s love and for Blanche’s well-being. The play is a display of the drama involved in families, and it shows that sometimes people have to make decisions and choose one relationship over another.
To conclude, the author portrays Blanche’s deteriorating mental state throughout the play and by the end it has disappeared, she is in such a mental state that doctors take her away. Even at this stage she is still completely un-aware of her surroundings and the state she is in herself.
Firstly, the reader may initially feel Blanche is completely responsible or at least somewhat to blame, for what becomes of her. She is very deceitful and behaves in this way throughout the play, particularly to Mitch, saying, ‘Stella is my precious little sister’ and continuously attempting to deceive Stanley, saying she ‘received a telegram from an old admirer of mine’. These are just two examples of Blanches’ trickery and lying ways. In some ways though, the reader will sense that Blanche rather than knowingly being deceitful, actually begins to believe what she says is true, and that she lives in her own dream reality, telling people ‘what ought to be the truth’ probably due to the unforgiving nature of her true life. This will make the reader begin to pity Blanche and consider whether these lies and deceits are just what she uses to comfort and protect herself. Blanche has many romantic delusions which have been plaguing her mind since the death of her husband. Though his death was not entirely her fault, her flirtatious manner is a major contributor to her downfall. She came to New Orleans as she was fired from...
Mitch is unlike Stanley because he is more of a gentleman and develops a crush on Blanche. Eventually Stella goes into the hospital to give birth and during this time Stanley rapes Blanche. When Stella returns, Blanche tries to tell Stella what Stanley did to her but she instead believing her, Stanley and Stella send Blanche off to a mental institution. Blanche DuBois, the protagonist of the play, is introduced to the readers in the first scene, where she makes a surprise visit to her sister and her sister’s husband, Stella and Stanley.
was lobotomised in his absence and later institutionalised leading. many critics to believe that the character of Blanche may have arisen. from events in his own life. Blanche's tragic past involving both the death of her "young" husband and her consequent promiscuity with. The "young men" created an overwhelming amount of emotion for Blanche.
...es and thinks that her hopes will not be destroyed. Thirdly, Blanche thinks that strangers are the ones who will rescue her; instead they want her for sex. Fourthly, Blanche believes that the ones who love her are trying to imprison her and make her work like a maid imprisoned by them. Fifthly, Blanche’s superiority in social status was an obscure in her way of having a good social life. Last but not least, Blanche symbolizes the road she chose in life- desire and fantasy- which led her to her final downfall.
One cant imagine how it must feel to lose the ones they love and hold dear, but to stay afterwards and mourn the loss of the many is unbearable. Blanche has had a streak of horrible luck. Her husband killing himself after she exposed her knowledge about his homosexuality, her advances on young men that led to her exile and finally her alcoholism that drew her life to pieces contemplated this sorrow that we could not help but feel for Blanche throughout the drama. Blanche’s desire to escape from this situation is fulfilled when she is taken away to the insane asylum. There she will have peace when in the real world she only faces pain.
Blanche is driven by her sexual desire but also wishes for stability and a fresh start instead. Blanche states “It was the other little familiarity that I felt obliged to discourage, I didn’t resent it!.. I was somewhat flattered that you desired me” (Williams 87). For the first time she doesn’t succumb to her body’s physical needs for her wish to be able to settle down with Mitch. If Blanche answered her body’s need for sex she would have killed her act of being a Southern belle looking for a suitor. This again brings out the close line between death and