Blanche Dubois In A Streetcar Named Desire By Tennessee Williams

Established as one of the most prolific playwrights of the 20th century, Tennessee Williams used his writing as a form of therapy. The author came from a troubled background consisting of alcoholism, mental breakdowns, and general unhappiness; Williams exploited these unfortunate events and allowed them to motivate his literature. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois’ struggles represent the reality of people’s lives, “an enduring concern of [Williams’] throughout his writing career (Henthorne 1). Blanche captures our focus with her seemingly sincere and fragile nature, but it is later revealed that this is just an illusion within her own mind. She resides in a world of fantasy to shield herself against the harsh threats of reality and her own fears. Blanche’s main objective in the play is to keep herself from falling apart in a world of cruelty through alcoholism and illusion. Through the characterization of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams depicts the coping mechanism of fantasy and its detrimental repercussions by exploring the specific experiences that eventually impede her happiness.

To live in a world of illusion is to live a life of lies.Sometimes people try to escape reality, whether to avoid truths or to avoid their past. A Streetcar named Desire by Tennessee Williams introduces Blanche Dubois as the main protagonist and potential victim of the story. In the story, Blanche leaves her home in “Belle Reve” because it has been destroyed and takes a streetcar to to get to her sister’s (Stella’s) residence. She believes that she will find a new life as well as comfort and acceptance at her sister’s side. Unfortunately she is very wrong about it, in fact, it is the complete opposite. Blanche’s past life was very shameful for her and so in order to forget the tormenting truth, she resorts to living a fantasy life of her own, which causes problems for her later on (self-destruction).

Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire is a web of themes, complicated scenarios, and clashes between the characters. Therefore, it might’ve been somehow difficult to find out who the protagonist of this play is if it wasn’t for Aristotle’s ideas of a good tragedy because neither of the main characters, Stanley Kowalski and Blanche Dubois, is completely good nor bad. According to Aristotle’s Poetics, a good tragedy requires the protagonist to undergo a change of status which only happens with Blanche Dubois.

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

     In Tennessee William’s masterful play, A Streetcar Named Desire, the reader meets a middle – aged woman by the name of Blanche DuBois. Blanche lives in her own faerie tale world, one of a young, beautiful debutante, surrounded by admirers, and loved by all whom she encounters. In reality, Blanche is an aging woman who cannot cope with the actualities of life. She makes up wild stories, and when Stanley Kowalski, her brother – in – law, rapes her, the realities of life cause her to drift into absolute lunacy.

Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams In the play, A Streetcar Named Desire, author Tennessee Williams does a wonderful job developing the character of Stanley Kowalski. To me, his character seemed most like that of a true person. On the other hand, Stella, Stanley's wife, is mainly displayed as being the loving type, and because that is basically the only character trait she displays, it is difficult to really understand her as a person. The character of Stanley Kowalski is developed much like a real person, having numerous personality traits.

Blanche DuBois is a very complex character. She is referred as a Southern belle, a woman with fading beauty but still an attractive female. As for her nature, she can be described as a lonely and hypersensitive young woman

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.

She slept with various men and when she got to Laurel, the cunning woman acted as if nothing happened. Her fantasy began here, where she would purposely make people believe that she was a modest young woman. As time progressed, she met a guy named Mitch. Falling for her charm, Mitch was blinded by his love for Blanche and could not see past the real her. When Stanley confronted Mitch about Blanche’s true identity, he denied it and called him a pretentious liar.

Blanche arrives in Elysian Fields in New Orleans in Stella and Stanley’s home daintily dressed in a white suit and white gloves and hat. It’s a poor and run down area where she looks totally out of place. She doesn’t like where Stella is living. She tells her, “I thought you would never come back to this horrible place…Why, that you had to live in these conditions “(Williams, 19, 20). She tries to portray herself as superior and after already having a drink and ready for second drink, she says, “Now don't get worried, your sister hasn't turned into a drunkard, she's just all shaken up and hot and tired and dirty….. No, one's my limit.”(Williams, 19, 21). She tries to hide that she’s been fired from her job, instead she tells she left on her

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.

Set in the French area of New Orleans, America, just after World War Two, it is the story of Blanche DuBois, a slightly crazed and deranged woman on a search for a place to live in her time of need.

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams was a huge success as both a play, and a film. It defied the norms at the time and broached subjects which, even now are rarely talked about. The cast in the play all had much more depth to them than you might initially notice, and Blanche is a great example of this. Blanche DuBois is a very easy character to write off as simply being elitist and snobby, but there is really much more to her character than meets the eye. Throughout both the film and the novel, the audience gets an uncanny sense from Blanche, and there 's a reason for that. Blanche is a character that shows symptoms of countless mental illnesses and Tennessee leaves little doubt that she has something but never quite tells us what, even if he leaves plenty of clues for us to piece it together ourselves. From the evidence he has left us, I believe that Blanche could be suffering from two conditions: Schizophrenia, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Williams confirms Blanche's status as a tragic figure in this passage. One way he shows this is through the red robe Blanche wears, the colour red serving as an indication that she is in danger. The playing of the varsouviana music is another dramatic technique which serves to create pity, both clearly showing Blanche's anxiety and reminding us of the tragic loss of her husband and the hardships she has faced in the past, creating further sympathy. However, her status as a tragic figure can be seen most plainly from Williams' description of her "tragic radiance". In the 1950s, when the play was first performed, audiences might have been inclined to side with Stanley, as, as an industrial worker, he seems to be representative of the American

        Tennessee Williams was once quoted as saying "Symbols are nothing but the natural speech of drama...the purest language of plays" (Adler 30). This is clearly evident in A Streetcar Named Desire, one of Williams's many plays. In analyzing the main character of the story, Blanche DuBois, it is crucial to use both the literal text as well as the symbols of the story to get a complete and thorough understanding of her.