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How Does Tennessee Williams Present Blanche

561 Words3 Pages

In the play ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ Tennessee Williams Blanche DuBois’character captivates the audience with her complex persona. The moment where Blanche reveals her past to Mitch is a turning point in the play, where Williams is able to skillfully bring out Blanche's complex character through the use of language and dialouge, music and character development. Through these techniques, Williams is able to create a character with a complex mix of fragility and strength. Williams uses the element of language to further enhance Blanche's character. Blanche's dialogue is poetic and lyrical, especially her French. “Voutez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?” which translates to will you sleep with me tonight highlights her romanticised view of the world, especially since she was speaking French, the language of romance. Her use of such posh language reflects her attempts to create an alternate reality that shields her from the harshness of her actual circumstances. By creating an alternate reality of romance and glamour Blanche blurs the line between illusion and the truth. This convey …show more content…

Through the use of the polka music, a recurring musical motif, the audience gains an insight into Blanche's traumatic experiences with love. “A few moments later - a shot! [The polka stops abruptly. Blanche rises stiffly. Then the polka resumes in major key]”. The recurring polka music serves as a haunting reminder of her troubled past and her inability to escape the memories that haunt her, namely her husband’s suicide.The Varsouviana polka, was playing when Blanche's husband shot himself. Thus, the music becomes a haunting reminder of her past actions and the immense guilt she carries. Through these deep moments, Williams is able to convey the depth and complexity of Blanche’s character as we are able to see that she is a strong woman and not as shallow as portrayed in the previous

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How Does Williams Use Light To Characterize Blanche Dubois

340 Words | 2 Pages

Brilliant and creative writers are able to exploit simple ideas or objects to emphasize an important message or characterize a persona in his or her play. In “Streetcar Named Desire,” by Tennessee Williams, Williams utilizes light to help characterize Blanche DuBois. She is presented as an individual who avoids reality, has sexual desires, and displays herself ostentatiously, but she is really an insecure tragic figure; she lies about her age and steers clear of things that will expose the truth. Williams uses light, in his play, as a motif to illustrate that Blanche does not only hide from the light to disguise her age, but by choice (very much) hide her imperfections (flaws) and the truth. There are many interpretations as to what “Blanche”

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Streetcar Named Desire Costumes

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The Varsouviana polka which Blanche hears several times in the play, would be heard through one of the speakers near the upstage to give a distant

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Self Preservation In Night By Elie Wiesel

1480 Words | 6 Pages

Blanche is projecting the self-image of a person who believes that they are above others. She acts as though she is of a royal family and demands the respect of everyone around her. She loses her family's home to the government and blames it on her sister who left in order to search for her own lifestyle. From the beginning of her visit, Blanche gets an off feeling about Stanley. When she arrives, he starts to stare at her with a sense of caution then soon begins inspecting the paperwork that she brought with her in order to validate her story.

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How Does Blanche Dubois Have Been At War With Desire

815 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout all of these encounters, Blanche still maintains a mirage of innocence and purity. Having grown up in a society that requires her to suppress her desire, she hides it from those around her, and attempts to maintain her sense of entitlement and social status. She plays the role of the person she would like to be, and instead of telling the truth she tells “what ought to be. Instead of embracing her sexuality, she pushes it deep down. “After all, a woman’s charm is fifty percent illusion”.

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Insecurity In A Streetcar Named Desire

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It is what is haunting Blanche’s life, it is what has made her mentally unstable. Throughout the play, she has been hiding her past from people so she looks like

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Examples Of Lying In The Great Gatsby

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Blanche acts as if her life is not falling apart and carries herself as the same girl from Belle Reve. She carries herself as the most sophisticated, classy, pure and innocent than everyone else, however later within the play the readers witness Blanche’s true nature. A promiscuous, manipulative, former aristocrat with a poorly hidden drinking problem. “She springs up and crosses to it, and removes a whiskey bottle. She pours a half tumbler of whiskey and tosses it down.

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Blanche Dubois Mental Illness

1025 Words | 5 Pages

Blanche craves for companionship, validation and desires to be wanted by all men. Blanche is promiscuous, which had its consequences, causing to lose her job as well as her relationship with Mitch. Throughout the play Blanche’s

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Literary Analysis Of Blanche Dubois

1166 Words | 5 Pages

Many literary criticisms have been written about Blanche and how she tends to lie about everything in her life. “Blanche disguises her desperation with lies- about drinking, her age, her reasons for coming to New Orleans, her sexual experience.” (Dace n.p.). Dace clearly describes Blanche as a liar and describes the fact how she lied about everything from the smallest thing, like her age to something as big as the reason why she went to New Orleans. “... in spite of the fact she’s somewhat older than I.

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Relationships In A Streetcar Named Desire

1371 Words | 6 Pages

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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Blanche's Destruction In A Streetcar Named Desire

778 Words | 4 Pages

Both Blanche's family and Belle Reve represent her dream to indulge in a sophisticated, high class, and luxurious life. When all of Blanche’s family dies and Stella leaves, Blanche loses the first piece of her “beautiful dream.” She no longer has the money to support herself, since her educational career provides insufficient funds. After the tragic loss of her husband, Blanche loses Belle Reve and loses her job, symbolizing that her “beautiful dream” has been fully crushed and the only remnants of her dream are the lies she feeds herself. This fall of social class leads Blanche to carry a tone of classism.

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Gender Stereotypes In Streetcar Named Desire

966 Words | 4 Pages

She is, by far, in opposition with the theme of purity, the author reveals that Blanche is a liar. Indeed she is saying that she has been hiring from her job, which is not the truth. Blanche is one the most interesting character in the story because she does not fit to some gender stereotypes, this difference makes her attractive and

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Stereotypes In A Streetcar Named Desire

1245 Words | 5 Pages

Not only has Tennesse Williams portrayed Stella and Blanche to be seen as delicate and dependent, our own society has created this image but this not only affects how individuals see themselves but affects relationships immensely. Tennessee Williams reinforces the stereotype in which women are often the victims of unfortunate fate within the usage of the character Blanche. Throughout the whole play, we have witnessed Blanche being on the bitter end of life's miseries as she has encountered the tough loss of Belle Reve, dealing with her ex-husband's suicide and the loss of her relationship with Mitch. Arguably, the expectations and beliefs of women were either to be a housewife or a mother, whereas Blanche shows neither, as a result of automatically feeling out of place possibly leading to her downfall. Blanche was constantly fantasizing about the traditional values of a southern gentlemen, proving her dependence on this sex.

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Theme Of Light In A Streetcar Named Desire

895 Words | 4 Pages

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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Illusion Vs Reality In A Streetcar Named Desire

608 Words | 3 Pages

In A Streetcar Named Desire, the author Tennessee Williams exaggerates and dramatizes fantasy’s incapability to overcome reality through an observation of the boundary between Blanches exterior and interior conveying the theme that illusion and fantasy are often better than reality. Blanche, who hides her version of the past, alters her present and her relationship with her suitor Mitch and her sister, Stella. Blanche was surrounded by death in her past, her relatives and husband have passed away, leaving her with no legacy left to continue. The money has exhausted; the values are falling apart and she is alienated and unable to survive in the harsh reality of modern society. Throughout the novel Williams juxtaposed Blanche’s delusions with

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A Streetcar Named Desire Gender Roles

765 Words | 4 Pages

To Blanche, Stanley originally comes off as appealing however once he rapes her, he becomes monstrous in her eyes. On the contrary, Blanche is not exactly humane as well. Blanche is the extreme version of how a female was represented in the mid-1900s, but takes crazy too far. As opposed to helping Blanche deal with the world, her fantasizing is more destructive then helpful. Stanley’s violent rape of Blanche is a wake up call from her fantasy life, the final straw in her mental decline, leading to her

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