The Song at the Scaffold by Gertrud von le Fort describes the early life of Blanche de la Force, the timid daughter of the Marquis de la Force. During the French Revolution in the 1790’s, Blanche lived as a novitiate in the Carmelite Convent at Compiegne. Due to an incident which lead to her immature birth, Blanche had become unusually timid and had had difficulties living in the real world. These difficulties made Madame de Chalais’ duty as Blanche’s tutor all the more arduous. Thus, the Madame directed Blanche toward veneration of the Christ Child, believing herself that those who offered veneration to Him would be freed from harm. However, this reverence which Blanche held for the Infant King soon changed form to a vocation, which …show more content…
The Madame Informed Blanche that a sincere devotion to the Infant King, a statue of the Child Jesus, would prevent harm from coming to any individual. On one occasion, Madame de Chalais remarked to Blanche, “Surely You must see how easy it is for the King of Heaven to protect you.” However, though Blanche venerates the Infant King, events in her life prove wrong the theory of Madame de Chalais. For example, when Prioress Croissy, a deeply religious young woman, died of a disease, her death struggle was evidently very painful. Blanche became horrified that such a holy woman was permitted by God to suffer in such a way. Furthermore, on Christmas Day, as Blanche bent down to kiss the head of the Infant King, she became started by Revolutionists singing in the street. She dropped the statue which broke, her face becoming “that of a stigmatic.” From this point on, Blanche followed the example of the Agnus Dei, or Lamb of God, offering her suffering and fears to the Lord. Thus, although the beliefs of Madame de Chalais proved to be incorrect, Blanche discovered her own solution to the crushing burdens of her …show more content…
Nevertheless, after the death of her father, Blanche lived under the control of the Revolutionist “September Mothers.” As the narrator reports, “if during that dreadful September night she had been the symbol of our unhappy country, there was in this continuance of suffering a tragic rightness.” This “living” which she endured under the September Mothers was, in reality, a loss of all sense of feeling and merely a maintenance of existence, suffering all the while. During this ordeal of psychological martyrdom, Blanche was often found crouched alone in a dark corner within a rear room in her home, perhaps in an attempt to cope. However, thrown into such a state of despondency as she was, Blanche found within her courage at the moment she required it most. Present during the execution of the Carmelite convent, Blanche took up their powerful dying hymn, awing and inspiring the crowd before becoming a martyr herself. Finding herself in the situations of spiritual and physical martyrdom, both incomparable sacrifices and ultimate acts of faith, Blanche de la Force did not falter, proving the beliefs of Sister Marie
Blanche is fearful until the end, even to the point of running away from the convent because she did not want to be caught. But when the last two voices singing the Veni Creator are stopped, Blanche takes up the song and sings the last verse. Her face was “absolutely fearless”(75), Her voice was clear, she sang “without a tremor, exulting like a bird!”(75). Her fear had been overcome at last, and she was ready to die for Our Lord by sacrificing her own life. Sister Marie, craving martyrdom from the start, was filled with anguish when she heard. She broke into tears, declaring that she had wanted to be the last one to sing, as it is for whoever is last that dying is the hardest of all. It is at this moment she realizes that she is called to martyrdom too, but in a different way. Abbé Kiener tells her “Sacrifice your voice also, my daughter. Yield up your voice to the very last one.”(73). Both Blanche and Sister Marie were called to martyrdom, sacrificing life and
The Carmelites were forced no longer wear their habits, but plain clothes instead. Similarly, the Carmelites dressed the statue of the Infant Jesus with plain clothes in hopes to disguise it when they ship it to the Dauphin. Afraid of martyrdom, Blanche flees the convent and returns to her father’s house; she ran right into the heart of her fear. Her father is killed by revolutionaries, and as she stands over his dead body, a revolutionary spots her. He soon realizes that she is a nun, and forces her to receive “communion”, but instead of receiving the Blood of Christ, she is forced to drink to blood of the people slain by the revolutionaries. According to Villeroi, “Blanche at that moment, embodied her martyred country…” She was taken by the “September Mothers”, thus falling right into the hands of her foes. Likewise, the Revolutionaries intercepted the package containing the Infant King, and it too, fell right into the hands of the foes. The Carmelites expected this to happen, as their motivation of sending the package was to get the Dauphin martyred, as they themselves wanted to be martyred. This hope for martyrdom was what led Blanche to flee the convent. The Carmelites are now being brought to the scaffold, and Blanche is present there against the crowd. After the last nun is martyred, Blanche, still in the crowd, carries on their song. The
The fifteenth century was a gruesome era in world history. Church and state were not separated which caused many problems because the Church officials were often corrupt. The story of Joan of Arc, portrayed by George Bernard Shaw, impeccably reflects the Church of the 1400’s. Joan, a French native, fought for her country and won many battles against England. But Joan’s imminent demise came knocking at her door when she was captured by the English. She was charged with heresy because the armor she wore was deemed for men only but she justified her actions by stating that God told her to do it. Today, Joan of Arc would be diagnosed schizophrenic because of the voices in her head but she would still be respected for serving in the military. But in the fifteenth century, she was labeled as nothing more than a deviant. She was tried and the Inquisitor characterized her as a beast that will harm society. Through his sophistic reasoning, loaded diction, and appeals to pathos and ethos, the Inquisitor coaxed the court into believing Joan was a threat to society and she had to pay the ultimate price.
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.
Through the art of symbols, Williams narrated the tragedy of Blanche’s downward spiral into the internal abyss by using polka music. Blanche’s desire to remain in her “make-believe” world caused her to lose her grasp on reality, and it became her ultimate demise. Tribulation after tribulation, madness was inevitable in any human beings, in this agonizing situation. What commenced Blanche Dubois’s mental decline was the death of her husband, Allan Grey. However, it was how he perished to be subjected.
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.
This essay will describe whether or not Blanches’ unfortunate eventual mental collapse was due to her being a victim of the society she went to seek comfort in, or if she was solely or at least partly responsible. The factors and issues that will be discussed include, Blanches’ deceitful behaviour and romantic delusions which may have lead to her eventual downfall, the role Stanley ended up playing with his relentless investigations of her past and the continuous revelations of it, the part society and ‘new America’ played in stifling her desires and throwing her into a world she could not relate to or abide by.
One of the first major themes of this book is the constant battle between fantasy and reality. Blanche explains to Mitch that she fibs because she refuses to accept the hand fate has dealt her. Lying to herself and to others allows her to make life appear as it should be rather than as it is. Stanley, a practical man firmly grounded in the physical world, disdains Blanche’s fabrications and does everything he can to unravel them. The relationship between Blanche and Stanley is a struggle between appearances and reality. It propels the play’s plot and creates an overarching tension. Ultimately, Blanche’s attempts to rejuvenate her life and to save Stella from a life with Stanley fail. One of the main ways the author dramatizes fantasy’s inability to overcome reality is through an explorati...
As to her first name, Blanche, it is clear to the reader that white stands for purity, innocence, and virtue. This descrip...
...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.