A Street Car Named Desire

Never stable even as a girl, she was shattered by her husband's suicide and the circumstances surrounding it. Later the harrowing deaths at Belle Reve with which she evidently had to cope on her own, also took their toll. By this time she had begun her descent into promiscuity and alcoholism, and in order to blot out the ugliness of her life she created her fantasy world of adoring respectful admirers, of romantic

Blanche has a devastating and scarring past in which her tragic flaw originates from. The elements of love, sex, and death haunt her until she is unable to handle it any longer and loses what is left of her sanity and sparks her unstable mind. To expatiate, Blanche was once married to the love of her life, Allen Grey, until she found him in bed with another man. Her husband shoots himself after Blanche says she is disgusted by him. This horrific event has an enormous impact on Blanche’s life and is key to her later behavior.

Beatrice murdering her husband didn’t come out of nowhere like her children thought— it was due to built-up tension, pressure, and abuse until she finally snapped. She couldn’t withstand being a bystander— to her the only way to preserve her status and her children’s lives was to murder her husband. Beatrice clearly displays symptoms of battered woman syndrome, however, some of these symptoms are congruent with post-traumatic stress disorder, such as emotional detachment to life at the end of the novel. Kambili uses words such as “vacuously” (302), to describe her mother. According to her daughter, her mother doesn’t, “ reply to her[Sisi], Mama simply sat and stared” (298).

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... ... middle of paper ... ...ehavior is after her and Stanley have an inappropriate encounter (possibly raped her). After that point the audience knew that after that point, Blanche could no longer stay at Stella and Stanley's apartment.

To conclude, Tennessee Williams’ dramatic use of death and dying is an overarching theme in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire,’ from which everything about Blanche’s character has formed from. Without the death of Allan, Blanche would not have resorted to prostitution and the brief affairs with strangers, also the deaths of her family have driven Blanche to Stella’s where she is “not wanted” and “ashamed to be”. Therefore these dramatic deaths have lead to the past which comes back to haunt Blanche meaning that she can never find happiness until she dies and is forgotten.

In her attempts to escape reality Blanche exaggerates her status in society while subtly mocking her sister’s and husband living environment. Haunted by secrets from her past Blanche puts up a facade to avoid any discussion involving the circumstances of her relocating to New Orleans. Eventually, Blanche’s lies become too much for her to handle and she becomes unable to determine what is real and what an illusion is thus leading to her downfall. Blanches arrives in New Orleans and immediately starts telling stories she conjured up. The moment she steps foot into Stanley’s and Stella’s apartment she creates this upper class world that she’s from while deliberately avoiding any discussion involving Belle Reve.

In the story, many important people, including the lovers themselves, die due to the family feud, whether they were directly murdered by someone on the other side or forced to take their own lives because Mooney 2 of the pain caused by the fighting. In the last line of the play, the prince states, “ For never was a story of more woe than that of Juliet and her Romeo,”(Shakespeare). At this point the two have taken their own lives due to a long series of events, including the death of one of Juliet’s cousins and Romeo’s banishment from Verona. All of this has stemmed from a grudge between the heads of the family that doesn’t include the children. The hate the families share has consumed t... ... middle of paper ... ...ps.

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.

Even though she lied throughout the play, her dishonesty becomes more noticeable and irrational due to Stanley's torment about her horrible past. After dealing with the deaths of her whole family, she loses Belle Reve, the estate on which her and her sister grew up. This is too much for Blanche to handle causing her moral vision to be blurred by “her desperate need to be with someone, with ancestors for models who indulged in “epic fornications” with impunity, [Blanche] moves through the world filling the void in her life with lust” (Kataria 2). She also loses a young husband who killed himself after she found out he was gay when she caught him with another man. After that traumatic experience she needed “a cosy nook to squirm herself into because ... ... middle of paper ... ...ices, such an attempt to elicit sympathy for this monster falls short” (Bell 2).

The effects of loss Lady Montague- After Romeo’s banishment, Lady Montague was so upset, that she died from her own grief. The loss of her son caused her to put too much strain on her herself, and literally die of a broken heart. Her grief consumed her, which brought about her untimely death. The feud between the Montagues and Capulets- The loss of Lord Capulet and Lord Montague’s children bring the two households together. Romeo and Juliet’s death helped their parents realize how wrong their feud was and bond over the commemoration of their children.