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Who Is Responsible For Blanche's Downfall

1266 Words6 Pages

A streetcar named desire was written by Tennessee Williams in 1947, in purpose to show the “declining of the upper class and the domination of the bourgeois middle class in the U.S.A. where the south agriculture class could not compete with the industrialization.” Blanche Dubois the protagonist of our story, a southern beauty that is trapped by the restrictive laws of her society. But she broke them, and eventually put herself in a state, where she had no job and no house. So she had to go to her sister, Stella and live with her and her sister’s husband, Stanley. While staying there, she created a façade for her to hide her flaws and kept acting as a lady, where she is anything but that. To hide her true self, Blanche restored to duplicity, coupled with her voracious desire and ubiquitous deception caused her a breakdown. In the following paragraphs, there will be more events that led Blanche to such end. One of the things that led Blanche to her downfall is the past. The past, where she was the reason why she lost her husband, Alan, he …show more content…

For example, she kept telling her sister to move on with the world and to not stay with her husband. In fact, it is the other way round, she is the one who must move on and find something to do with her life, instead of drinking away her problems. Her attitude toward having sex with Mitch is contradictory too, she wants to show her as pure and reserved person, but she isn’t a bit of that, if she didn’t lie about that, she could have connected with him on the physical level too and she would move on a little bit, because she has someone with her and will stay with her. And who knows, maybe it would have been easy for her to confess to him what she did in Laurel because they would be closer towards each

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Blanche attempts to take control over her present life and make her fantasy become a reality. As she struggles to get past her husband's suicide, she comes across a phase in which she wishes to please other men in order to feel complete with herself. Her husband's sudden suicide was traumatizing and this main factor pushed her to find comfort in men. As Blanche explains, “coming suddenly into a room which I thought was empty- which wasn’t empty but had two people in it… the boy I had married and an older man who had been his friend for years” (114). Through this event, we can tell how Blanche has guilt because she made her husband feel horrible for being with another man which led him to shoot himself.

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There are many things to be said about Ms. Blanche DuBois in the literary work “A Streetcar Named Desire”. Blanche Dubois has many personality flaws and traits have come from her many troubled experiences. One of her personality traits is that she is in a way insecure mainly due to the fact that she once had wealth and estate but lost it all. Those insecure faults arose from when she once felt the security of a marriage but lost that also when she discovered that he liked man in which led to him committing suicide. One of the best textual evidence to point to the fact is when she was looking for a compliment from Stanley.

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She has felt obliged to lie to herself and to others. A streetcar named desire took place during the rise of feminism period where the role of women demanded to be upgraded and have equal rights with men. In the entire play the role of gender and feminism is shown at the character of Blanche. The different female characters of the play share something common and something

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In the book Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, Tennessee Williams did accomplish in making Blanche Dubois, the most sympathetic character in the story. To witnessing her husband in bed with another man, from losing her job and house to being raped by her sister’s husband can make one feel sensitive and compassionate towards others experiences, like Blanche Dubois. The other characters experiences cannot measure to the same trauma Blanche Dubois has went through and that correlates to making her appear to be the most sympathetic character the story. The readers feel the way they do because of Blanche Dubois’s story.

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Settling into a routine can bring peace and comfort, but it can be easily disrupted when events outside an individual’s control lead to uncertainty. The drama written by Tenesse Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire, follows the protagonist, Blanche Dubois, who moves to live with her sister after tragic family deaths and losing her estate. The effects of Blanche’s presence in the Kowalski household lead

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A Streetcar Named Desire was published just after World War II. When the play came out, the country had just emerged from the war after struggling through the Great Depression of 1930 's, and suddenly the national spotlight concentrated on the lower and middle classes as the true supporters of the heroic American spirit. The title of the play shows that desire is the force which will lead the actions of the play. The title comes from an actual vehicle or a streetcar named “Desire” that Blanche takes to transport her to her sister’s house, then she turns to one called Cemeteries and get off at Elysian Fields. So it is obvious that desire is what Blanche has followed from the beginning

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The 1951 film version of A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, gives a visualization of the working-class Americans in the 1940’s. The film gave a better understanding of the characters, and their perspective as their lifestyle was brought to life. The household of the average working-class is depicted in the opening scene when Blanche comes to visit Stella and sees her apartment. The apartment is broken down and located on a small street in New Orleans. It is small, with ‘two’ rooms separated by a curtain.

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In A Streetcar Named Desire, written by Tennessee Williams in 1947, Stella Kowalski has to make a critical decision. During the entire show Blanche DuBois is staying with her sister, Stella. While she is there Blanche becomes more and more deranged, and as the show continues Blanche lies about her life and how she came to stay with her sister. Due to Blanche Dubois’ daft mannerisms, her sister made the suitable decision to send her to a mental institution. Stella Kowalski has a child on the way, and if Blanche has a mental disorder it will be extremely hard to care for a child and a sister.

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Gender differences take a big place in every story and can lead to some conflicts. According to Cliffsnotes,“Gender stereotypes are simplistic generalizations about the gender attributes “(Cliffsnotes 1). In other words, it exists some stereotypes that categorized people. In A streetcar named Desire written by Tennessee Williams, there is some conflictual situations based on gender differences between Mitch, Stanley, Stella and Blanche. Based on this idea, each character represents a specific type of gender stereotypes.

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Blanche flees a failed company and a failed marriage in attempt to find refuge in her sister’s home. Through her whirlwind of emotions, the reader can see Blanche desires youth and beauty above all else, or so the readers think. In reality, she uses darkness to hide the true story of her past. In A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, Williams uses the motif of light to reveal Blanche’s habit of living in a fantasy world until the light illuminates her reality. Blanche uses darkness to block her past from onlookers as to shape her image.

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Williams uses the expressionist technique “The ‘Varsouviana’ is filtered into weird distortion, accompanied by the cries and noises of the jungle” to parallel Blanche’s inner mind and depicts Blanche’s deranged mental state after Stella’s betrayal. The imagery ‘Lurid reflections appear on the walls in odd, sinuous shapes’ highlights her mental turbulence and the stage directions ‘mysterious voices behind walls, as if reverberated through a canyon of rock…the echo sounds in threatening whispers’ heightens tension, positioning the audience to witness the overwhelming fear and exaggeration of her senses, further emphasising the detrimental impact Stella’s decision made. The Streetcar Named Desire also examines the influence that a person’s social standing can have. Stanley’s statement in scene 2 ‘The Kowalskis and Dubois have different notions’ indicates their social upbringing has influenced the way they think, hence disrupting their connection and loyalty towards one another. The use of their family name is metonymic for their ancestry and social standing, addressing the barriers derived from a social hierarchy which have affected their relationship.

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Tennessee Williams wrote “A Streetcar Named Desire” (Williams, 1947) It is based in New Orleans a new cosmopolitan city which is poor but has raffish charm. The past is representing old south in America 1900’s and present is representing new America post world war 2 in 1940’s. Past and present are intertwined throughout the play in the characters Stanley, Blanche, Stella and mitch. Gender roles show that males are the dominant and rule the house which Stanley is prime example as he brings home food and we learn of one time when he got cross and he smashed the light bulbs.

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“A Streetcar Named Desire” is a very elegant film in which the Southern gothic culture is demonstrated profoundly. Tennessee Williams uses the characters in the play to bring about a sense of how corrupt society truly was in the 1940’s in the South. The 1940’s was marked by an immense amount of violence, alcoholism, and poverty. Women at the time were treated as objects rather than people. Throughout the play Tennessee Williams relates the aspects of Southern society to the characters in the play.

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