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Streetcar Named Desire

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In A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, Blanche, a former socialite and debutante, is ostensibly concerned with manners and civility. Blanche swings from losing people in her life to losing possessions and a strong sense of desire to combat her ineluctable demise. Her sense of desire is inflamed by the death of her former lover, who she describes as her greatest love.
Starting in Act One, Williams starts to show the reader Blanches inevitable pattern of life when she is searching for the streetcar and describing the directions given to get to her sister's home. “They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries, and ride six blocks and get off at-- Elysian Fields.”() The first streetcar, named …show more content…

Understanding Blanches previous sexual partner and the actions he took to keep from continually giving into his sexual desires, the reader can gather the direct connection between fulfilling your desires and the consequences from it. Williams hints that Blanche has a choice between staying on the path she is headed down and the choice to change the course of her life by being able to get off at Elysian Fields. (Mood) If she were to continue on the streetcar of cemeteries after six blocks then she would inevitably be headed straight toward death. By getting off at Elysian Fields, she gives herself ‘six blocks’,or six scenes in the case of the play, before she has to face death. Either way Blanche is faced with dying, but by continuing on she gives herself the chance to continue giving into her sexual …show more content…

Blanche once again gives into her desires and becomes involved with Mitch, manipulating him into doing what she wants because he is inexperienced and in doing so she loses her chance at life. “Blanche's affair with Mitch centers on her needing a place away from Stella and Stanley, and Mitch's rejection of her expresses itself in a refusal to bring her "home."”(Vlasopolos) At this point, Blanche is using Mitch to escape from the loneliness of her life and to have some companionship, but she really does not love him at all. When the hispanic woman is chanting about flowers for the dead Blanche realizes that she has officially lost all hope and she is about to reach her destination of death. This is the last straw for Blanche, realizing that the opposite of death is desire, but not the sexual desire she has been fulfilling. The desire opposite of death is desire in good things, but the desire she has had is death's

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