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Character analysis for blanche dubois
Streetcar named desire analysis essay
Streetcar named desire analysis essay
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A Streetcar named Desire was written by Tennessee Williams, during the restless years following World War II. The play was based on the life of a woman named Blanche Dubois. Blanche was a fragile and neurotic woman, desperate for a place to call her own. She had been exiled from her hometown Laurel, Mississippi after seducing a seventeen year old boy. After this incident, she decided to move to New Orleans with her sister Stella. She claimed she had to move, in result of a series of financial calamities which have recently claimed the family plantation, Belle Reve. Her sisters husband, Stanley Kowalski is very suspicious seeing that Blanche seems like an ambitious woman. Therefore, he decides to investigate her. He wanted to make sure Blanche didn’t sell the plantation for her own good. As he begins to find out more about her past, all of Blanches lies catch up to her. Soon, her circumstances become unbearable.
Blanche Dubois the main character of the play, was an English teacher in Mississippi. She presents herself as a very prim, proper, and prudent person. She once proudly told her sister Stella that her name in French meant white woods. Blanche Dubois is also overly concerned with her appearance, accessories, bathing and age. She was very disturbed by the light, and usually preferred to be in the dark. Many believe it was to prevent people from noticing her real age. Deep inside she was hurt and destroyed. All of this pain was caused by the death of the love of her life. She was married to a young man named Allan, and they loved each other very much. Until one day Blanche found out that Allan was sleeping with another man. Once she confessed to him she knew his secret he committed suicide. Ever since, Blanches’ life was never the same again.
Blanche Dubois always felt she was loved and admired by many. However, things changed after her husbands tragic death. Life was not easy for her, as she became lonely and slept with different men. Her loneliness led her into moving unexceptedly with her sister Stella. However, this only caused more troubles in her life. She was not very well liked by her brother in law, Stanley Kowalski. Stanley was from Poland, and had very little education. He was also a very strong, good looking man. He was loyal to his friends, passionate to his wife, but extremely cr...
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...t people around Elysian Fields were living a contrasting lifestyle from theirs. That “their” type is not the one they’re used to. Stella and Blanche were raised on a plantation with money, while Stanley and his friends were poor and uneducated. The conflict began when these two classes were pushed together in the same world. This is shown when Stanley and Blanche meet each other, and their opposite lifestyles are obvious. Stanley is sweaty, dirty, and rude; whereas Blanche is well dressed and soft spoken.
In A Streetcar named Desire, Tennessee Williams presented to us the character of Blanche Dubois. She was the haggard and fragile southern beauty whose happiness was cruelly destroyed. She always avoided reality, and lived in her own imagination. As the play goes on, Blanches “instability grows along with her misfortune.” Her life ended in tragedy when she was put into a mental institution. Her brother in law’s cruelty combined with her fragile personality, left Blanche mentally detached from reality. Stanley Kowalski showed no remorse for his brutal actions, destroyed Blanches life and committed her to an insane asylum.
Blanche’s immoral and illogical decisions all stem from her husband's suicide. When a tragedy happens in someone’s life, it shows the person’s true colors. Blanche’s true self was an alcoholic and sex addict, which is displayed when “She rushes about frantically, hiding the bottle in a closet, crouching at the mirror and dabbing her face with cologne and powder” (Williams 122). Although Blanche is an alcoholic, she tries to hide it from others. She is aware of her true self and tries to hide it within illusions. Blanche pretends to be proper and young with her fancy clothes and makeup but is only masking her true, broken self.
In 'A Streetcar Named Desire' we focus on three main characters. One of these characters is a lady called Blanche. As the play progresses, we gradually get to know more about Blanche and the type of person she really is in contrast to the type of person that she would like everybody else to think she is. Using four main mediums, symbolism and imagery, Blanche's action when by herself, Blanche's past and her dialogue with others such as Mitch, Stanley and the paperboy, we can draw a number of conclusions about Blanche until the end of Scene Five. Using the fore mentioned mediums we can deter that Blanche is deceptive, egotistical and seductive.
Throughout Tennessee Williams’s play “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Blanche Dubois exemplified several tragic flaws. She suffered from her haunting past; her inability to overcome; her desire to be someone else; and from the cruel, animalistic treatment she received from Stanley. Sadly, her sister Stella also played a role in her downfall. All of these factors ultimately led to Blanche’s tragic breakdown in the end. Blanche could not accept her past and overcome it.
This gradual fall and loss of her sense of reality is truly tragic. Blanche is a person largely driven by the part of her that wants to be liked and be accepted. She cares greatly about how she is viewed and how she looks which is seen throughout the play. Even at the end when she’s living almost completely in the imaginations of her mind she asks Stella and Eunice how she looks before being taken away to an insane asylum. Tennessee Williams, the author of the play, uses all the conflict between Blanche and others, specifically Stanley, to show that fantasy is unable to overcome reality. Stanley and Blanche are both the epitomes of fantasy and reality. Stanley is a man focused on sexual drive, work, and fighting. He is exhibited as animalistic and strongly driven by his desires which is shown when he says, “Be comfortable. That's my motto up where I come from.” Stanley loves and searches after reality which is why he is so set on breaking down the facade he sees in Blanche. Blanche on the other hand is running from her reality and her past. Her fantasy of being high class and chaste is the exact opposite of her reality which is why she wants a life like that so badly. She wants marriage and stability, two things she was jealous of Stella having after arriving in New Orleans. Her fantasy she was building in her new life is shattered when Stanley is able to learn of her past and bring reality crashing down on her. Williams
Superficial is the first impression that Blanche gives when she enters the play. Consumed by appearance and face value, she is unable to see that Stella’s new lifestyle is not as horrid as she imagines. In comparison to Belle Reve, it is true that these New Orleans slums may not meet Dubois standards, but Blanche is unable to see beyond the way things appear in order to realize that Stella’s world does not revolve around material items. This flaw is intertwined with her vanity and her need keep up appearances. On the surface, Blanche appears to be snobbish and conceited.
During scene one, the audience is introduced to Blanche as Stella's sister, who is going to stay with her for a while. Blanch tries her best to act normal and hide her emotion from her sister, but breaks down at the end of scene one explaining to Stella how their old home, the Belle Reve, was "lost." It is inferred that the home had to be sold to cover the massive funeral expenses due to the many deaths of members of the Dubois family. As Blanche whines to her sister, "All of those deaths! The parade to the graveyard! Father, mother! Margaret, that dreadful way!" (21). The audience sees this poor aging woman, who has lost so many close to her, and now her home where she grew up. How could anyone look at her, and not feel the pain and suffering that she has to deal with by herself? Williams wants the audience to see what this woman has been through and why she is acting the way she is. Blanche's first love was also taken from her. It seems that everyone she loves is dead except for her sister. Death plays a crucial role in Blanche's depression and other mental irregularities. While these circumstances are probably enough for the audience to feel sympathy for Blanche, Williams takes it a step further when we see Blanche's...
From Blanche’s rich and expensive appearance, the reader can guess that her interests can only due with money, clothing, and jewelry. “Look at these feathers and furs that she come here to preen herself in…a solid gold dress…fur pieces…(Williams, 6).” In every new scene Blanche is dressed or changing into a new and unique looking garment. It is also made clear by Blanche’s sister that she loves to be admired and complimented about her clothes and beauty. “And admire her dress and tell her she’s looking wonderful. That’s important with Blanche. Her little weakness (Williams, ).” From these scenes the reader can see that Blanche is very materialistic and self-absorbed always wanting to be the one in the spotlight with her new clothes and expensive accessories. On the other hand Stanley’s interests seem to be more relaxed and laid back. His interests are more simple things such as bowling, drinking, and playing poker with his friends. “Branching out form this complete and satisfying center are all the auxiliary channels of his life, such as his heartiness with men, his appreciation of rough humor, his love of good drink and food and games, his car, his radio…(Williams, ).” Stanley has no interest in money or showing off, he just likes to have a good time. From their differing interests, the reader can see just how different Blanche and Stanley are, Blanche loves to be pampered and admired, while Stanley just likes to be laid back and at ease with himself and his
In the play, “A Streetcar Named Desire”, by Tennessee Williams, the protagonist Blanche Dubois faces grandeur delusions when moving into her sisters house. Her sister, Stella Kowalski is married to a Polish man named Stanley who has many issues with Blanche’s personality and many conflicts arise. Throughout the play the author portrays more and more of Blanche’s inner personality and flaws. The author brings this out through Stanley, who constantly over powers her and is always trying to figure out more and more information about Blanche’s past and bad things that she has done. She is always on a defensive mode and is constantly trying to cover up her past.
Williams introduces Blanche Dubois as a symbol of purity and innocence in “A Streetcar Named Desire”, Although she isn’t exactly a heroine to this story she is the complex protagonist nonetheless. She is presented as a jaded belle without any money due to loss of her family’s fortune who’s come to New Orleans in search of refuge at the home of her sister Stella and her impulsive husband Stanley. While her sister Stella left Belle Reve to make a new life for herself, Blanche stayed behind and spent the rest of her watching as her family died eventually forcing her to sell the family mansion Belle Reve to pay for their funerals. Following that we learn that Blanche at one point in her life she was not only married to but worshipped and was infatuated
In Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire, main character Blanche Dubois to begin with seems to be a nearly perfect model of a classy woman whose social interaction, life and behavior are based upon her sophistication. The play revolves around her, therefore the main theme of drama concerns her directly. In Blanche is seen the misfortune of a person caught between two worlds-the world of the past and the world of the present-unwilling to let go of the past and unable, because of her character, to come to any sort of terms with the present.
Blanche, the key catalyst for the play, presents herself as a lost character, entirely out of place in New Orleans and the setting her sister lives in. When first introduced, the narrator describes her as “incongruous” to the setting because of her high-end clothes and jewelry in a normal New Orleans neighborhood. Blanche also looks visible “uncertain” of her sister’s abode, appearing “lost” to Eunice because of her foreignness to the setting. Even after told by Eunice she has arrived, Blanche still feels uncertain whether this can be her sister’s home. She faces a severe culture shock, as she grew up in a “big place with white columns” in luxury compared to her sister’s status. She continually shows surprise at how small her sister’s house is, at Stanley’s crudity and general lack of sophistication, and at his
Blanche grew up living on a plantation in Laurel, Mississippi which is why she considers herself a Southern Belle, despite the changing environment around her. Her life at Belle Reve does not fulfill the dreams that once encircled the wealthy plantation. Instead, Blanche finds herself assuming the responsibilities for the “epic fornications” of her families past lives, along with the financial debt that comes with owning the house. This isn’t the only thing Blanche has been left to take care of though. She is also left to simultaneously pay for the funerals of her relatives, and after being unable to reimburse her debts, Blanche eventually succumbed to the loss of her cherished land. In addition to the loss of Belle Reve, she is also impacted by the lifelong guilt coming from the fact that she made a cruel r...
Blanche suffered many deaths throughout her life, but the one that impacted her the most was the death of the love of her life. Blanche is a typical southern woman, except the fact that she is unmarried and has no children. This is hard for Blanche to except, but part of the reason she is unmarried comes from her past love. Blanche was in love with a boy at a young age. They were married, but
The play A Streetcar Named Desire written by Tennessee Williams is renowned for its controversial elements that cause many respected adults to question whether the play should be read by students. Some instances in the play that occur cross the line between raising awareness about and issue and corrupting the morals of the reader. Set in New Orleans in 1947, A Streetcar follows the story of Blanche as she is reunited with her sister, Stella, and meets her gruff, disagreeable, brother in law, Stanley. As Blanche is mentally and physically abused by Stanley, she also struggles with the burden of the death of her friends and family. Williams uses abuse, rape, patriarchy, homosexuality, and death to depict Blanche as the broken character he intended
One of the most known characters in "A Streetcar Named Desire," is Blanche DuBois, Stella's sister who has just arrived from Mississippi. As the book goes by, the reader will discover a series of events that caused her to lose mental health choosing magic instead of realism. Blanche managed to build herself a new reality in a new world causing her to lose the people she loved and most cared about. The death of her husband if one of the main reasons she change dramatically trying to find attention somewhere else and even becoming an alcoholic. Not having her conscience pure, she tries to find ways to deal with her past by satisfying herself and remaining happy. The ways of coping with her problems are not quite the best, further she feels