Blanche Dubois A Streetcar Named Desire

‘A Streetcar named Desire,’ is an interesting play, by Tennessee Williams. The character 'Blanche DuBois' is created to evoke sympathy, as the story follows her tragic deterioration in the months she lived with her sister Stella, and brother-in-law Stanley. After reading the play, I saw Blanche as the victim of Stanley's aggressive ways, and I also saw her as a hero in my eyes.

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”

In Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois desires to be viewed as a pure and innocent girl despite her sex and scandal filled past. In Scene 5, Blanche attempts to explain the way someone needs to look if they want to come off as innocent and appealing: “When people are soft---soft people have got to shimmer and glow---they’ve got to put on soft colors, the colors of butterfly wings, and put a---paper lantern over the light. . . . It isn’t enough to be soft. You’ve got to be soft and attractive” (79). By wearing soft, not harsh on the eye colors, particularly white, Blanche is trying to show that she is still young and virtuous. Blanche is playing the part of a wholesome and angelic woman in order to appeal to the men

Similarly, Blanche Dubois has some of the same characteristics as Willy Lowman. She lies about the reason for her coming to visit her sister. Blanche said," I was so exhausted by all I'd been through my-nerves broke. [ nervously tampering cigarette] I was on the verge of-lunacy, almost! So Mr. Graves-Mr. Graves is the high school superintendent- he suggested I take a leave of absence. I couldn't put all those details into the wire . . . [She drinks quickly.] Oh, this buzzes right through me and feels so good!" (Tennessee Williams, page 1120). Later on the story, we discover that Blanche had a sexual altercation with a student and that was her cause for leaving town. Also, Blanche likes to keep up with her self-appearance. Therefore, she flaunts

Blanche Dubois is a degenerated woman. Behind her veneer of social snobbery and sexual propriety, Blanche is an insecure, dishonest individual. She claims to be –and acts the part- of a upper class woman. The irony of it all is that she has no class herself. After losing all of her family’s money, estate, and respect she looks for sympathy and pity in every nook and cranny she can find. This woman is a walking paradox. She claims many times she is not one to drink, but in multiple scenes she is drinking plenty of alcohol all with the excuse of her nerves. She pretends to be a high class woman with all of her fancy clothes and aristocracy attitude one would think she is a clean and proper person compared to the classes “below” her yet in various

Before one can understand Blanche's character, one must understand the reason why she moved to New Orleans and joined her sister, Stella, and brother-in-law, Stanley. By analyzing the symbolism in the first scene, one

The character of Blanche Dubois in the play A Streetcar Named Desire is depicted as a victim of her traditional southern upbringing, she struggles to find her place in society where the values of a Southern Belle are no longer relevant nor exist. Blanche Dubois is portrayed as the weaker sex, who is then over powered by Stanley Kowalski, her sister’s working class husband. Blanche Dubois shows a great psychological instability when she is unable to live up to the expectations of a classic and proper Southern Belle. This psychological instability ultimately leads to her to have a metal breakdown, the play ends with Blanche being committed to a mental institution.

The name “Blanche” comes from a German word meaning white which is a color that represents purity and innocence. But the color white is also one that can easily stain. Blanche wishes to hold onto her essential goodness as well as her Old Southern roots. She grew up in an upper class family on a large plantation called Belle Reve. The plantation symbolizes the tradition of the Old South and when the DuBois family loses it, Blanche must watch her source of home and security slip from her fingertips. This loss represents an ever changing society which Blanche fears, causing her to hold onto the one thing she can attempt to maintain: her physical appearance. She wears flashy clothes and expensive perfume as a facade to hide the fact that she is

Williams first introduces Blanche DuBois in the play with the following description, “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” (Williams 15). This description depicts Blanche as a high society woman and could do better than living in New Orleans. Blanche is only putting on airs from this description. This means that she is faking her higher class status; in reality what she is wearing is

In the play, “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Blanche’s reaction to stay away from the light is obvious. When she walks into a room and sees a naked light bulb, she overs the light by saying, “I can’t stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.” Blanche, is in a dating relationship with a gentleman named Mitch. When Mitch and Blanche go on dates, Blanche insist that they go anywhere that does not have well-lit locations, and anywhere she can stay hidden from the light. But why would a lady like Blanche want to stay hidden? Blanche has a past that will haunt her forever. From sleeping with many men, to being done wrong in many relationships, to being forced to move from New Orleans, it seems like she is trying

In the play A Streetcar Named Desire the tragic hero Blanche Dubois is a “Southern Belle” from Mississippi who was born to a wealthy family. Blanche is a former schoolteacher who says that she lost Belle Reve (family estate) due to cost of the funerals and deaths of family members, but she avoids the fact that she does not have a job or money when she goes to stay with her sister Stella and bother in law in New Orleans. She seems to be on the run from her past because of her husband’s suicide after she expressed her distaste on his sexuality. She later had many affairs trying to numb her grief on the death of her husband.

She plays a fake person(fantasy) but really has never changed (reality). She talks about the naked truth and that truth is that she has never changed she just changes the way she looks. Williams uses Blanche as a gateway to this idea and makes her seem like a doll. If it weren't for Blanche, Williams would not be able to get all of his personal feelings across the way he wants to. He also uses Mitch and Stanley to portray his ideas of men addressing women.

I would like to analyze a tragic heroine Blanche DuBois appearing in a play A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) written by Tennessee Williams. My intention is to concentrate on the most significant features of her nature and behaviour and also on various external aspects influencing her life and resulting in her nervous breakdown. I would like to discuss many themes related to this character, such as loss, desire and longing for happiness, beauty and youth, pretension, lies and imagination, dependence on men and alcoholism.

Aristotle conceptualized how “tragedy arouses the emotions by bringing a person who is somewhat better than average into a reversal of fortune for which he or she is responsible; then, through the downfall of the hero and the resolution of the conflicts resulting from the hero’s tragic flaw, the tragedy achieves a purging of the audience’s emotions” (Masterpieces of World Literature). Tragic plays have one or more tragic heroes within them; A Streetcar Named Desire is no exception. According to Dr. Hebert, a tragic hero must meet the following criteria: they “must be Noble, have a tragic flaw such as hubris, they go through a sequence of fall, suffering, learning, and punishment, and there must be an emotional

One of the main themes in A Streetcar Named Desire is madness. Blanche is used to depict madness throughout the play. Her madness stems from one specific event: the suicide of her late husband, Allan. She feels as though she was the one who pushed him to kill himself. While telling the story of Allan to Mitch, she says, “It was because of－on the dance-floor－unable to stop myself－I’d suddenly said－‘I saw! I know! You disgust me…’”(96). The tremendous guilt that she feels contributes to her downfall. Throughout the play there is polka music playing in the background showing her unstability and that she can’t escape her guilt. When Mitch comes over and she starts hearing the music again, she says, “The ‘Varsouviana’! The polka tune they were