Blanche Dubois Monologue

W.E.B. Dubois The great African American intellectual W.E.B. Dubois was born in the post-Civil War era. Being born at this time encouraged him to fight for equal rights for blacks. At this time, blacks were still suppressed very greatly. Dubois, having had lived in an all black community, experienced racism first-hand in the North (Donalson, 558).

The reader may view Blanche as someone who tried to escape her sordid past in Laurel and wanted to start a new life with her sister, yet due to the continuous investigations from Stanley, was unable to do so. Stanley reveals Blanches’ lies and deceits, commenting on them as her ‘same old act, same old hooey!’ This tells the reader that his research of Blanches’ past is way of stopping her from finding a new life. Blanche attempts to redeem her life by finding love with Mitch, yet Stanley again reveals to Mitch that she was not ‘straight’, resulting in Mitch not wanting to be with her and also contributing to her fate. Stanley, after mercilessly divulging all her truths and bringing her to the edge of her mental capacity, rapes Blanche which brought about her final collapse. The reader may view Stella as someone at blame for her sisters’ fate, as though she shows some moral support of Blanches’ situation and listens to what she has to say, Stella continuously throughout the play neglects to notice Blanches slow mental deterioration and ignores Blanches’ outcries and incessant need for attention. Stella chooses Stanley over Blanche, despite her warnings about him being ‘volatile, violent and sub-human which represents not

Blanche’s guilt, the principal force driving her downfall, stems from her involvement in the circumstances surrounding her husband Allan’s suicide. After finding her husband with

The audience always had the feeling that Blanche was a little nuts, but we see her condition worsening as the play goes on. During the final scene we see Blanche go with a doctor and nurse to, presumably, a mental hospitable. Eunice

Blanche could not accept her past and overcome it. She was passionately in love with Alan; but after discovering that he was gay, she could not stomach the news. When she revealed how disgusted she was, it prompted Alan to commit suicide. She could never quite overcome the guilt and put it behind her. Blanche often encountered

In this play Blanche has a praxis: She must get a companion to share her life with who can provide her with shelter, food, and financial support and that’s what makes the whole story happen. This praxis is created when two things happen: First, Blanche finding out that the man she married was having an affair with another man and he decided to shoot himself after she confronted him, and second, the loss of her house in Mississippi. These two things create her need of a shelter, financial support and food therefore she decides to stay with her sister Stella.

Through his work, “Of Our Spiritual Strivings,” W.E.B. Dubois takes the reader on a journey through the typical black man’s eyes. He creates a new meaning of the African American man as he shares personal experiences and stories of the past alike. He plays upon the heart strings of every reader, no matter the race, with his literary knowledge of words, use of pathos, and stories of his past experience to pull in emotional ties to his work. The application of dualism allows the reader, who is most commonly white men, to choose a side to sympathize with, for Dubois gives the sense of double consciousness as the African and the American throughout his entire work.

Blanche's panorama towards gay people had interchanged with her beliefs and this lead to her biased opinion towards her husband. Most likely, things were probably said that weren't meant to be hurtful, but her husband still committed suicide. This misunderstanding of her own feelings as well as her husbands’ potentially lead to a guilt savaged life for Blanche.

WEB Du Bois provides a counter argument to the belief in the American dream, however. He argues that “when sticks and stones and beasts form the sole environment of a people, their attitude is largely one of determined opposition to and conquest of individuals” (541). Du Bois is arguing that men become oppressed because of an innate attitude that men possess, that in fact it is not their qualifications that determine whether or not they are successful, rather it is based on the preconceived

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

due to her past blanche’s actions are unusual and to many they are considered inappropriate. Blanche lives through some very dark and intense incidents before the play takes place, she witnesses the death of her entire family, she loses her family home, and to add to the misery she believes she is the reason her husband killed himself. In an act to move on she retreats into illusion acting as if these incidents never happened. Blanche decides to lie to everyone, from her sister to the man she potentially wanted to marry, she does not give them the truth. She wants to marry mitch but does not tell him about her past, mitch had all right to know, yet she led him on, actions like these in an environment of connection is inappropriate beyond a doubt. Because of her lies and illusions Blanche ends up losing everything, she loses her only chance at a future with Mitch and her freedom when she is sent to the mental institution. Blanches motivation by the past caused her life around her dissolve.

According to Blanche’s story, in her hometown of Laurel, she had lived in the Hotel Flamingo after the plantation was lost. While living there, she was surrounded by admirers, the same as she always had been. However, what Blanche really did was sleep around, pretending she had several admirers, but always winding up alone.

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

In this additional scene, Blanche is at a mental foundation experiencing psychiatric treatment. As the scene starts, she is floating between her universe of fantasy and reality; showing her universe of desire through her arousing way and suggestive wording through her discussion with the specialist

When she arrives at Elysian Fields, she quickly realizes that her sister's home is not the haven she imagined it to be, but an entire different world that is totally unfamiliar to her. This realization, combined with the loss of Allan, causes her to cling desperately to her sister. She even goes so far as attempting to persuade Stella away from her husband, a plan that backfires, leaving Blanche more alone than ever. "The suffering and erosion of the past leave her with an incapacity for the present (Gilman 148).