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A street Car Named Desire
Blanche’s Magic gone Sour
Blanche is a woman who desire’s a new life. She is an outcast to society and turns to her sister Stella for help. She needs a way out from her discouraging life. This is why she comes to New Orleans. She feels a new opportunity is around the corner and maybe even a new life. Blanche has no place left to turn and her past catches up to her.
Blanche is a very confused woman. She doesn’t even know herself what she really wants. From the point her husband pulled the trigger Blanche has felt nothing but despair and desire. She turned to anything that made her feel better and unfortunately it was prostitution. She lost her and Stella’s house and acts like it wasn’t her fault. She arrives at New Orleans looking for a new life and someone to complain and wine to, this being her sister. She has no place left to go but Stella’s house this is her only opportunity to start over.
When Blanche arrives everything starts off pretty smoothly. She doesn’t have a big problem with Stanley yet and her sister is happy to see her. Its only until her past starts to be told is when the trouble begins. Stanley gets very upset at Blanche for losing the house and thinks that she is cheating Stella. This of coarse makes Stanley hate Blanche and he is now determined to undermine her and then make her leave. He knows she is not up to any good and this is proven when she becomes involved with Mitch. When Blanche and Mitch meet sparks fly and we as the reader think this is the start to a good relationship, something that both these characters need. Blanche really likes Mitch and she things this could be a
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.
Stanley’s demanding that Mitch return to the poker game when he is first speaking to Blanche could suggest that Stanley doesn’t want the two to interact, and would perhaps go to any lengths to sabotage them. Additionally, Stanley also begins to pry into Blanche’s past, specifically when he brings up a man named Shaw who claims he met Blanche “…at a hotel called the Flamingo” (Williams 89). Though this speculation is denied by Blanche, a further investigation into her past could result in the discovery of incriminating information, thus resulting in sabotage from Stanley.
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...
She struggles with Stanley’s ideals and shields her past. The essential conflict of the story is between Blanche, and her brother-in-law Stanley. Stanley investigates Blanche’s life to find the truth of her promiscuity, ruining her relationships with Stella, and her possible future husband Mitch, which successfully obtain his goal of getting Blanche out of his house. Blanche attempts to convince Stella that she should leave Stanley because she witnessed a fight between the two. Despite these instances, there is an essence of sexual tension between the two, leading to a suspected rape scene in which one of their arguments ends with Stanley leading Blanche to the bed.
When we see Blanche for the very first time we know right away that she does not belong in Stella’s neighborhood, she is "daintily dressed" and her "delicate beauty must avoid a strong light", she seems in a fairly hysterical state but we can assume that’s just normal since she is "incongruous to this setting". She seems to be having trouble speaking normally to a black person so that we can already place the origin of her upbringing in the South, probably in one of those enormous mansions that housed rich slave owning white families. As the scene unfolds, the image of the rich, somewhat shelte...
The drama is basically about a married couple -Stella and Stanley Kowalski- who are visited by Stella's older sister, Blanche. The drama shows the caustic feelings of these people putting Blance DuBois in the center. The drama tells the story of the pathetic mental and emotional demise of a determined, yet fragile, repressed and delicate Southern lady born to a once-wealthy family of Mississippi planters.3 No doubt that the character of Blanche is the most complex one in the drama. She is truly a tragic heroine.
Stanley grows tired of Blanche lying to him and Stella and to get revenge for all the chaos she has caused in their lives he rapes her. He asserts himself to show that men are truly dominant over women; this causes Blanche to lose what is left of her mind. All of her memories of the past torment her in this moment causing her the greatest pain that she has experienced in her life. The fantasy disappears from Blanche when this happens because it brings her back to a reality where there is no happiness just pain and suffering caused by people around her. “ I have always depended on the kindness of strangers (page 142)”. This is an example of tragedy that is seen throughout the play because Blanche considers an act of kindness to be desire. In the end Blanch was not desired and cannot face the reality of being a victim of rape so she retreats into her delusionary world of fantasy and
Blanche who had been caring for a generation of dying relatives at Belle Reve has been forced to sell the family plantation. Blanche is a great deal less realistic than Stanley and lives in illusions which bring upon her downfall.
Blanche’s developmental history or character development points to her diagnosis. Blanche comes to New Orleans to stay with her sister Stella after being fired from her job as a schoolteacher due to having an inappropriate affair with a teenage student. When she arrives to see her sister, she is consumed with insecurities regarding her appearance and is condescending to her sister’s humble lifestyle. Stella’s husband Stanley immediately has distrust and dislike for Blanche and treats her
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
A street car named desire leads its self to feminist criticism due to the very distinct gender roles in which a male dominance prevails. The play reveals the victimization of two women Stella Kowalski and Blanche DuBois who are consistently overpowered by Stella’s husband Stanley and society’s norms. Blanche is a beautiful woman who struggles to live up to her expectations as a southern belle and shows many signs of mental instability due to the death of her young husband many years ago. While Stella on the other hand married an abusive husband whose relationship with her is a rollercoaster of excitement and disappointment. Southern Society perceived the ideal woman as one who followed the ways of the Virgin Mary, staying pure until marriage and tending to their husbands every whim. However in street car the women are treated more like slaves having to cooking and cleaning to please Stanley with no recognition for their hard work. In animal farm the pigs reward the animals for their hard word determination to build the working on the windmill and their bravery in the battle of the cowshed. Even before Blanche arrival she resorts to prostitution after the loss of her job which in society’s eyes made her unworthy of marriage. The living conditions were very poor with three people living in a cramped apartment that consisted of only two rooms. With only a sheet separating the bed room from the kitchen there was little privacy for the women to change and pamper themselves in without being disturbed. The pigs on the other hand had a
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...
...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.
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.
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.