1. The Varsouviana Polka:
The varsouviana is the polka to which Blanche last sees her husband alive. Blanche discovers her husband’s homosexuality, after seeing him with another man. Moreover, they all attend a party and start dancing as if nothing happens. Suddenly, Blanche turns toward her husband and utters the harsh words: “You disgust me”. Allen does not tolerate her words and commits suicide.
We notice that the polka plays at different points in the play. First time, when Stanley meets Blanche and asks her about her husband, whereas the second time occurs when Blanche tells Mitch the story of Allan Grey. In addition, the polka represents the loss of innocence for Blanche; it drives her to distraction and loses her grip in reality.
Every
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It shows that Blanche starts to lose her attachment to reality and she is now quite sure that something bad is about to happen. Therefore, this quote is foreshadowing the end of the play when Stanley rapes Blanche.
“The rapid, feverish polka tune, the ‘varsouviana’, is heard; she is drinking to escape it and the disaster closing in on her.”
The writer portrays Blanche as fragile character who uses alcoholism as an escapism tool. This indicates how weak and heartbroken person she is. At last, the writer tends to show us the dramatic fall of Blanche; she ends up as an insane person emphasized his perception in quote below.
“The ‘varsouviana’ is filtered into a weird distortion, accompanied by the cries and noises of the
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It shows the different moods that haunted Blanche throughout the play: depression, loneliness, desperation of love and her glimpse of hope willing for a better future in New Orleans.
“A corresponding air is evoked by the music of negro entertainers at a bar-room just around the corner...from a tinny piano being played with the infatuated fluency of brown fingers. This ‘blue piano’ expresses the spirit of life which goes on here”
Blanche believes that moving to this new city will bring happiness and enjoyment. The bluew piano gives an overall about the spirit of life in the new city.
It also shows polar opposite of symbolism of the color. In addition, blue color symbolizes truth, sincerity and tranquility and Blance holds none of these traits. It is heard first in scene 1 as if it is a sign the writer uses in order to foreshadow the troubles that lie ahead for Blanche and to show her departure from normal life. Moreover, blue piano appears second time in scene 2, which clearly represents her depression. It is displaced in her regular bathing as if she is cleansing herself from guilt.
“Stanley enters the kitchen from outside, leaving the door open on the perpetual blue music around the corner.
This shows the hidden emotional desires of Stanley toward
This can be symbolized by light. Blanche hates to be seen by Mitch, her significant other, in the light because it exposes her true identity. Instead, she only plans to meet him at night or in dark places. Also, she covers the lone light in Stella and Stanley’s apartment with a Chinese paper lantern. After Blanche and Mitch get into a fight, Mitch rips off the lantern to see what Blanche really looks like. Blanche angrily replies that she’s sorry for wanting magic. In the play, Blanche states “I don’t want realism, I want magic! [..] Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it!”(Williams 117). Blanche wants to escape reality, but this only leads to her self-destruction. It is the men in her life and past experiences that is the main cause of her self - destruction. One of these being the death of her young love, Allen Grey. During their marriage, Blanche, attached to the hip to this man, walked in on him with another man. She then brought the incident up at a bad time; soon after, Allen took his own life, which I believe was the first step to this so called “self-destruction. Blanche could never forgive herself of this. This is the truth of her past, therefore,
In this passage, Williams’ emphasises the nature of Blanche’s demise through the contrapuntal mode of the scene juxtaposing Blanche’s bathing with Stanley and Stella’s conversation. Williams wrote in a letter to Elia Kazan, who was to direct the film production of the play, that ‘It is a thing (misunderstanding) not a person (Stanley) that destroys (Blanche) in the ends’. This passage is significant as it shows the extent of Stanley’s misunderstanding of Blanche and his stubbornness to ascertain his condemnations to Stella. Furthermore, the use of colloquial lexis shows the true feebleness of Stanley’s claim because his judicial façade is diminished and shows the dangerous influence of claims as he sways Mitch away from Blanche. Stella’s character
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.
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...
In this play the character blanche exhibits the theme of illusion. Blanche came from a rocky past. Her young husband killed himself and left her with a big space in her heart to fill. Blanche tried to fill this space with the comfort of strangers and at one time a young boy. She was forced to leave her hometown. When she arrives in New Orleans, she immediately begins to lie and give false stories. She takes many hot bathes, in an effort to cleanse herself of her past. Blanche tries also to stay out of bright lights. She covers the light bulb (light=reality) in the apartment with a paper lantern. This shows her unwillingness to face reality but instead live in an illusion. She also describes how she tells what should be the truth. This is a sad excuse for covering/lying about the sinful things she has done. Furthermore, throughout the story she repeatedly drinks when she begins to be faced with facts. All these examples, covering light, lying, and alcoholism show how she is not in touch with reality but instead living in a fantasy world of illusion.
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...
Blanche represents a deep-seated attachment to the past.5 Her life is a lesson how tragic events events in the past can ruin a person's future. Her husband's death affects her the most.
She passionately raves at length about the horrible deaths and her experience of loved ones dying around her; “all of those deaths… Father, Mother, Margaret, that dreadful way!” The horrific visions of bloated bodies and “the struggle for breath and breathing” have clearly cast a permanent effect on Blanche’s mind. She talks of the quiet funerals and the “gorgeous boxes” that were the coffins, with bitter, black humour. The deaths of Blanche and Stella’s family are important to the play as they highlight the desperation of Blanche’s situation through the fact that she has no other relative to turn to. This makes Stella’s decision at the end of the play seem even harsher than if Blanche had just simply shown up on her doorstep instead of going elsewhere.
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...
which, as Williams suggests, "was too great for her to contain". As to whether her escape was "madness" can be debatable - although Blanche is clearly unstable at many points, some believe that Blanche is not. actually insane, suggested by Stella's comment in Scene 11 - "I. couldn't believe her story and go on living with Stanley. " From her first appearance on stage, Blanche is presented as being.
...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.
Repetition of the poker game from the beginning of the play is used as a device to suggest a similar tense atmosphere and the intensifying build up to a very dismal event for Blanche. In both games Stanley is winning which suggests his dominance and control, which symbolises the rape scene and how helpless Blanche was. The symbolism of Stanley’s aggressive poker playing reflects his real life aggression and violent habits towards women. The poker game also symbolizes the luck and gamble of Blanche’s life, as well the dishonesty and deception of the others around her. ‘You know what luck is? Luck is believing you're lucky!...I was lucky.’ suggests Stanley has got away with his vulgar behaviour and Blanche’s life is deteriorating rapidly. The poker game also represents the change in Blanche's behaviour. In contrast to the first poker game, in which Blanche is eager to convey the best of her physical appearance and make the men notice her, ‘how do i look...i feel so hot and frazzled. Wait till i powder before i open the door. Do i look done in?’ shows her eagerness to impress the ‘gentleman’ and her insecurity and obsession about her appearance which
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...
The first principle character in this play is Blanche DuBois. She is a neurotic nymphomaniac that is on her way to meet her younger sister Stella in the Elysian Fields. Blanche takes two 2 streetcars, one named Desire, the other Cemeteries to get to her little sisters dwelling. Blanche, Stella and Stanley all desire something in this drama. Blanche desired a world without pain, without suffering, in order to stop the mental distress that she had already obtained. She desires a fairy tale story about a rich man coming and sweeping her off her feet and they ride away on a beautiful oceanic voyage. The most interesting part of Blanche is that through her unstable thinking she has come to believe the things she imagines. Her flashy sense of style and imagination hide the truly tragic story about her past. Blanche lost Belle Reve but, moreover, she lost the ones she loved in the battle. The horror lied not only in the many funerals but also in the silence and the constant mourning after. 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 faced pain.