A Streetcar Named Desire Psychotic Analysis

The streetcar Named Desire is a very complex and engaging book with 3 different themes, desire and fate,death and madness. I chose to be Blanche DuBois in scene 8 and scene 10 as it sets the theme,madness.Like the other major themes of the play - desire and fate, and death - madness too was Tennessee ‘Williams’s obsession. His sister Rose’s strange behaviour which had long been a source of anxiety to her parents, later took the form of violent sexual fantasies and accusations against her father.Not only did Tennessee Williams feel guilty for not having saved Rose from all this, but he now feared for his own sanity because the mental illness that afflicted Rose might be hereditary. He certainly did have a breakdown of sorts in his early twenties.

In scene nine, Blanche is confronted by Mitch, who has learned the truth about her past. Mitch tells Blanche that he has never seen her in the light. He tears Blanche's paper lantern off of the plain, bright light bulb, and tries to see her as she really is, and not in a view warped by Blanche's efforts to make herself seem more innocent, young, and beautiful than she is. Blanche responds to

Blanche’s fear of becoming undesirable has caused her to create an illusion in an attempt to revive her youth. Throughout the entirety of the play, Blanche is constantly worried about her appearance and looks for compliments from others. When she is first introduced, “her appearance is incongruous to this setting. She is daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and earrings of pearl, white gloves and hat, looking as if she were arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party in the garden district”

She tries to hold on to him but is unable to keep him attracted. Blanche is lost, confused, conflicted, lashing out in sexual ways, and living in her out own fantasies. She has no concern for anyone’s well being, including her own. Thus, this is her utter most harmful demise. She has no realistic outlook for the future.

It is clear that Blanche DuBois is willing to do what she believes is necessary to get what she wants. This often includes deceit. She feels that she needs to lie about herself in order to seem more appealing. Because Blanche is so afraid of aging, she keeps her age to herself. While she is dating Mitch, she often deceives him by never letting him see her in bright light in order to conceal her faded looks. When she comes to New Orleans, Blanche does not tell her sister that she was fired from her job; she says that she is merely taking a vacation from the job. She says this in order to keep up the fake persona she holds. Blanche is very open about her lies with her sister. “I know I fib a good deal. After all, a woman's charm is fifty per cent illusion, but when a thing is important I tell the truth.” (69) This shows that Blanche’s lifelong choice of avoiding harsh realities leads to her breakdown. With all of the lies and deceit Blanche tells, she is living an unreal existence.

Throughout Tennessee William’s play “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Blanche Dubois exemplified several tragic flaws. She suffered from her haunting past; her inability to overcome; her desire to be someone else; and from the cruel, animalistic treatment she received from Stanley. Sadly, her sister Stella also played a role in her downfall. All of these factors ultimately led to Blanche’s tragic breakdown in the end.

Blanche tends to romanticize reality and she does this in this scene by saying: "We are going to be very Bohemian. We are going to pretend that we are sitting in a little artists' café on the Left Bank in Paris! Je suis la Dame aux Camilles! Vous etes - Armand! Understand French?" Not only does this indicate that she can't bear the reality of being on a date with Mitch in Stella and Stanley's Kitchen, but it flaunts her education, something Mitch has not had the privilege. This doesn't allow Mitch to have intellectual domination over Blanche.

Throughout the story A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche, a beautiful lost soul, shows the audience a different way of living life. The actions Blanche provides, as well as the things she says gives readers a better understanding on who Blanche really is. The way Tennessee Williams made this character was based on a mixture of both his and Blanche’s past experiences. Due to the death of her last husband, and the loss of her father, Blanche was living a life filled with thoughts of death and paranoia. In the story, Blanche begins to lose herself more and more as the scenes continue.

Mental Illness is shown throughout nearly the entirety of the play. It is revealed right from the beginning of chapter one, and it carries out throughout the majority of the book. Throughout the play, readers are presented with characters who battle mental illness in different forms. In particular, one character, Blanche DuBois strongly possesses mental issues that are clear in every chapter read. It is unclear exactly which mental illness Blanche really has in the play. However, there are many clues and indications that she has signs of schizophrenia, anxiety, post traumatic stress syndrome, and/or personality disorder. Blanche is Stella’s sister who comes to stay with her and her husband, Stanley, from Mississippi. She appears in a

In the modern classic, A Streetcar Named Desire, playwright Tennessee Williams tells the tragic tale of a New Orleans family haunted by and eventually torn apart by their loose morals. Utilizing various dramatic symbols, Williams indicates that unchecked desire will lead to social and psychological self-destruction. To do so, he highlights his characters’ personalities and effectively creates a pervasive tone throughout the play. Symbols are used to reveal aspects of each of the characters’ personalities, especially the twisted moralities that shape their lives. In particular, the excessive symbolism surrounding Blanche’s life represents that nothing about Blanche is candid or conspicuous: her entire life is shrouded in lies and exaggeration.

She even tells Mitch that she doesn’t tell the truth, she tells what ought to be truth. So Blanche is aware that she is lying and continues to do it, which end the end causes grief for her.

Blanche's tragic flaw that cause her downfall or hamartia is her reliant on men, so much so that she makes choices and does things that are morally questionable. She manipulates and lies to potential suitors to make herself seem more attractive and younger-which in her mind is the only way a man will love her. She does this with Harold "Mitch" Mitchell and it seems to be working until Mitch is informed of all the lies he's been fed, at which point Mitch breaks up with Blanche and leaves her vulnerable for Stanley to

It is clear from the beginning that Blanche is not a very honest character. She lives in a fantasy world of her own design. One of the very first things she does when she enters Stella’s

Blanche needs Mitch as a stabilizing force in her life; if her relationship with him fails, she knows she faces a world that offers few prospects for a financially challenged, unmarried woman approaching middle age. She tacitly admits to Mitch that she needs him when she accepts his embrace, but her fears of acknowledging her past and current situation overpower her and prevent her from telling the full truth. She hides her past not only from Mitch, but also from herself because to acknowledge it is to also admit the unhealthy choices she has made. When Stanley tells Mitch about Blanche’s blemished past Mitch recognizes that Blanche’s deceptions have relied on a symbolic and literal darkness which obscures reality. When Mitch asks Blanche to be honest about herself she says, “I don’t want realism. I want Magic! I don’t tell truth, I tell what ought to be the truth” (145). In these lines Blanche clearly expresses her desire not to deal with reality; this inability to face her circumstances signifies that Blanche is not recovering from her mental stress, but rather descending further into it. Blanche becomes desperate and delusional and her descent into mental

While drinking heavily after Mitch’s refusal to marry her, her delusional madness worsens. With very little self esteem left Blanche begins to pretend that there are people