A Streetcar Named Desire Dialect Journal

Though Blanche doesn’t necessarily want Stanley, she still feeds off the attention given to her. Though what Blanche does may be immoral, there is evidence of her wanting to be clean and virtuous. Almost anytime Blanche’s clothes are described, they are white, an innocent color. The reader can see that Blanche wants to be the virtuous person she often pretends to be.

It was not just her self that put her in the lime light of being a victim; it is also her new change of environment and people. Stanley is Stella's husband; he is described to be very masculine and aware of his sexual magnetism. “Strongly, compactly built”. He is mostly at ease with people however, if they lack loyalty and affection to him, he will bully them. Especially women, as he believes them just to be easy conflict. It is seen in scene 3 that Stanley has little respect for women. “I said to hush up!” This is addressed to his wife who is seen emotionless and impassive in this play. As for Blanche how is fussy and at edge, she would be very effected by the crude attitude that Stanley presents and so tries to hysterical take Stella away from her husband. Stanley does not forget of this act of interference and makes him all the more determined to be rid of Stella’s “charity case”. The real reason for Stanley’s bulling is that Blanche immediately received all Stella’s attention. “How about my supper huh? I’m not going to no Galatorires’ for supper” This made Stella dominant in power over Stanley and Blanche, something Stanley was not used to. “I put you a cold plate on ice”.

Stella's marriage to Stanley, on the other hand, seems to have given her the happiness and fulfillment, which Blanche has attempted to find in a guilt-ridden life of loneliness with promiscuity. As a result Blanche has become neurotic and alcoholic, slipping increasingly into insanity. Stella, meanwhile, appears to have been thriving in a profane, coarse, but wholly satisfying sexual relationship with Stanley. Thus, superficially, the main contrast between Stella and Blanche seems to be one between sickness and health, perversity and normality, particularly in the sexual relationship. Stella is thriving; Blanche is disintegrating. But a closer examination of these sisters begins to show more complex differences in their characters and situations. Blanche is disintegrating for reasons other than sexual perversity, and Stella is paying a rather steep price for her so-called "normal" life with Stanley.

A short amount of time has passed after Blanche’s encounter with the stranger following the departure of her to the mental institute, Blanche is wearing her piece of silky white robe. In her bag is a small bottle half full of liquor that she has slipped past the doctor. Whilst Blanche drinks to escape the feeling of regret she sings “Paper Moon” just so the doctor in the front seat of the car cannot hear her. Constantly taking sips of the strong liquor, she hums the song to herself until there is no more liquid in the glass bottle. Blanche looks up into the ceiling and tips the bottle upside down in hopes of the small puddle at the bottom to come out. With no liquor left in the bottle, Blanche frustratingly throws the bottle out of the window

“he’s just not the type that goes for jasmine perfume, but maybe he’s what we need to mix with our blood now that we’ve lost Belle Reve.” (Scene 2, Page 45)

Although there is nothing wrong with Stella offering her sister a help and let Blanche stays in her place, but the biggest missing component, in this case, is the cause a huge embarrassment, that is Stanley. Stanley is Stella’s husband, they live together with peace and entertainment so far; nevertheless, the involvement of a third person would interrupt or even shatter the situation, and this person is Blanche. Stanley represents the new rising Americans, and we can envision him as urban-hunkey. His lifestyle is full of manhood; he goes to bowling, loves poker party, and we gain the picture of him as an aggressive, dominant and very sexual person. To satisfy Stanley is quite simple, first, his sexual desire would override his other senses, which means his sexual relationship with his wife is extremely important to him; second, Stanley enjoys maintaining stereotypical gender roles in his home and being respect as the head of the household. After Blanche’s visit, both of his old habits are being disturbed because Blanche takes herself as someone who’s more superior which goes against his gender role and she sleeps right across them with only a thin layer of the barrier which also stops his lovely night party with his wife. These reasons caused Stanley being so unsympathetic to the way Stella treats Blanche, which furthermore

Blanches’ emotional state of mind is also conspicuous at the start of the play as she circumvents direct light, fearful of showing her fading looks and the light would make her vulnerable to the truth. Blanche is unable to withstand harsh light, calling the light a ‘merciless glare’(S1:pg.120*) because with Allan’s death, the light had gone out of her life and the effect this had is that she wanted dim lights hiding the reality of her painful memories. This links to the theme of dream and reality as Blanche, a delicate character, refused ‘to accept the reality of her life and attempts to live under illusion’ (*2), living on the borders of life similar to a moth which creates the image of Blanches’ fragility.

In the excerpt given, the audience will react by understanding how Blanche feels, then afterward be surprised by how she reacts to this. In the scene, Blanche is seen sitting stiffly in a chair and tightly clutching her purse. From this text, the audience will begin to understand that Blanche is feeling uncomfortable and out of her element because she seems nervous. Furthermore, the stage directions state: “suddenly she notices something in a half opened closet. She springs up and crosses to it, and removes a whiskey bottle. She pours a half tumbler of whiskey and tosses it down.” When at first Blanche notices the half open closet, this sparks curiosity because it is currently unknown what is inside. Then when Blanche discovers it was whiskey

Stella, too, is a major character who lives in a world of hopes and fantasies. Stella’s tears over her sister as Blanche was taken away at the end of play reveals that Stella’s fantasies have been crushed by Stanley’s brutality. Stella calls her sister, “Blanche! Blanche! Blanche!”(142) , as if she does not want to let go of her sister. In spite of the fact that Stanley tried to justify and to relief her, Stella knows that something acquitted and abandoned had banished. She knows that her happy and humble world and her sister’s hopes had gone. Through her fantasy world, she thinks she could keep her sister for ever, but fantasy does not always work and makes life appear as it should be rather than what reality is. Also, Blanche imagines the doctor as a gentleman who is going to rescue her from a life that she imagines it as a life that does not want to accept her. Blanche finishes the play by saying, “Whoever you are—I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” (142). Blanche’s irony is demonstrated for two reasons. First of all, the doctor is not a gentleman; he came to take her to a mental health care. Second of all, strangers are not kind to her; they are kind only for trade of sex. Instead, they feel sympathy for her for creating a world where she is the victim. Blanche never perceives stranger’s kindness as something that people take advantage of. Instead, she thinks that Stanley is the one who does not treat her well, although he wanted

She seems to hint to Stella and Stanley, and therefore the audience, that she is actually much more than she seems. In scene seven, Blanche soaks in a tub, singing:

However, as we get to know Blanches character and situation, we begin to feel much sorrier for her and even begin to pity the situation she is stuck in. Having lost the family’s luxurious plantation house in Belle Reve, although we do not know whether this reclamation of the house is solely down to Blanche or just generally a family-wide debt issue that has forced Blanche from her home so cannot blame anyone specifically for this, Blanche has essentially ended up wandering around the area, looking for somewhere to stay before she ends up, literally on her sister’s doorstep at a last minute request. Her manic and slightly frenetic behaviour when she does arrive suggest that she is desperately nervous or getting increasingly desperate for support and some friendship, someone to rely on. She is however, a woman who is quite dramatic and emotional, as she is not someone who understands empathy. This is apparent when she has just arrived at Stella’s and is talking to her sister about where she lives. Now most people, when arriving in someone’s house at the last minute to stay there for an unspecified amount of time, would never dream of doing or saying something to insult the host. Yet Blanche, when asking Stella how many rooms there are in the apartment says ‘What? Two rooms did you say?’ in a quite demeaning and slightly insulting tone and to follow this comment up she laughs sharply, in an almost

     Blanche appears at the apartment house where her sister, Stella, lives. She brings with her a trunk of fancy clothing,

Without realizing, Blanche compares herself to being like the light bulb and how it uses a paper lantern to cover up. She is however, fully aware of her alternating personality and that she uses it to impress others because in order for people to like her she feels she has to act like something that she is not making her very vulnerable. In order to protect herself, Blanche covers up by making fake stories and lying to everyone to seem more attractive. When her sister asks why she cares so much about her age, Blanche responds, “Because of hard knocks my vanity’s been given. What I mean is—he thinks I’m sort of prim and proper, you know. I want to deceive him enough to make him—want me . . .” (Williams 58). As opposed to letting herself shine, Blanche uses the

            Blanche is not really lost in illusions; rather she uses them as camouflage. She wears them as she wears her clothes and her glass necklaces, as protection from a reality that she finds horrifying. One must not think of Blanche as just a fragile, delicate blossom. There is a fierce desire in her for life at any cost. Her masquerade may

Blanche is waiting and preparing to spend time with Stanley’s friend, Mitch that she has grown a fancy to. Moments point before Mitch arrives, A young Paperboy arrives to deliver newspaper. Blanches holds him up by flirting with him; offering him a drink. She soon lets him go saying, “I’ve got to be good—and keep my hands off children” (Scene 5) This is the first time she shows her desire for young boys and