Notes clearly reveals that the rudeness of Stanley to Blanche. Stanley told to Stella what he knows about Blanche. She fired from her teaching job because of her affair with a student. The story is true, but he didn’t investigate the reason why she was like that. Even though Stella told him Blanche has the plan to marry Mitch, he didn’t stop to tell to Mitch about Blanch. Both Mitch and Blanche have something in common, lonely. She told him that her husband was a gay. When she knew about it, he committed suicide. After she told Mitch about her past marriage, he is interested in the relationship with her. I strongly agree with notes that Blanche is a victim. She is unable to cope with the reality that was happened in her marriage. Therefore,
Throughout this whole book there's always been a problem with blanche. Stanley and stella which was her sister took her in. When blanche got to where she needed to be which was with her sister stella. she got there you could tell blanche was scared and worried about her sister because the way stanley acted at the bowling alley. But from the beginning you could not really tell who really was the victim or not was it blanche or stanley ?
Stella abandons Blanche in her time of need, partly responsible for Blanche’s struggles prior to the plays events. Struggles that played a role in Blanche's overall instabilities and insecurities. But why is Stanley the one that's ultimately responsible? Aside from verbally and physically abusing Blanche, He isolates Blanche from the people she loves, the only people she has left. He was the one who convinced Mitch to abandon Blanche by telling him about her past. “You're goddamn right I told him! I'd have that on my conscience the rest of my life if I knew all that stuff and let my best friend get caught!”(Williams,126) He is the one that silences Stella. He is aware of his power over Stella. He is the reason why Stella abandons Blanche. He manipulates Stella into forgiving him even when he abuses her. He makes sure she is dependent of him so she never leaves while also subtly attempting to persuade her into taking his side instead of Blanches. “Stella, it's gonna be all right after she goes and after you've had the baby. It's gonna be all right again between you and me the way that it was. You remember that way that it was?”.
It seems that Williams has made it seem that Stanley did not cause Blanches downfall to much extent that he only sped up Blanche’s decline as she was already on a decline, regardless of Stanley’s added affects. However it can be argued that although Blanche was on the verge of a downfall she would have recovered as she had the strength to go to her sister for help. Yet it can be said that Stanley stopped Blanche recovering and aided her downfall to continue. Williams shaped Stanley’s character as a dominant, prideful and somewhat possessive one... I believe that he is mainly sexually possessive as once Blanche questioned Stella on why she loves Stanley she admitted that it was because, he fulfils her sexual and sensual desires with a steady life. ‘Remember what Huey Long said-`Every Man is a King!' And I am the king around here, so don't forget it!’ Stanley was the dominant character between him and Stella however, with the arrival of Blanche Williams disrupts their simple life; Blanche criticizes his private life his character, his views and beliefs. Therefore Stanley turns against her this could be argued the cause for Stanley to start breaking her down, wanting
When Blanche meets Mitch, she realises that her is someone who can give her a sense of belonging and who is also captivated by her “girlish” charms. She deceives him into thinking her, as she would like to be –prim and proper – however, as she later tells Mitch: “Inside, I never lied”. Her essential nature and being have been changed by her promiscuity – She gave her body to any man, but it would appear, that to Mitch, she is ready to give her whole being. Mitch falls in love with Blanches world of
One characteristic of Stanley is his rudeness and cruelty towards Blanche, Stella's sister. It is very apparent that Stanley does not care for Blanche.
Mitch has a very courteous and gregarious perspective on life. He basically believes that everyone deserves a chance. When he first meets Blanche, he begins to fall in love with her but soon after Stanley reveals the true Blanche to Mitch, he feels betrayed. At that point, his perspective changed because, he begins to become a little more like Stanley. An example of this is when he finds out and comes to meet Blanche and tells her
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.
Stanley possesses an animalistic physical vigor that is evident in his love of work and fighting. One characteristic of Stanley is his rudeness and cruelty. Stanley’s animosity toward Blanche manifests itself in all of his actions toward her—his investigations of her past, his birthday gift to her, his sabotage of her relationship with Mitch. Scene eight mentions Blanche's birthday party, and surprisingly, she receives a gift from Stanley. This gift, however, is not one that most people would appreciate.
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.
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
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
When Blanche was young, she was discriminatory towards her husband when she found out he was gay, causing him to commit suicide, destroying him both physically and emotionally. Then later on Mitch breaks up with Blanche due to her deceitful nature, also devastating her emotionally. Lastly, Stanley consistently tries to break Blanche by making her feel unwanted at his home and by raping her, consequently suffocating her last bit of sanity. The copious amount of cruelty throughout the play leads the viewer to believe that all humans are capable of executing cruel acts. It is conspicuous that one of the themes present in the play is to punish those who inflict both emotional and physical pain on others due to their acts of cruelty. While modern society has set laws and punishments for those who perpetrate these acts, it will never be certain of the full extent of the damage that has been done to the
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
Whiteness is also evoked by Mitch, and Stella. Mitch wants a replacement for his aging mother. Yet, Mitch feels hurt when he finds out about Blanche's prior sexual experiences from Stanley and takes his feelings of sexual rejection, and eventually forces himself on her against her will. The culmination comes when Blanche asks Mitch to marry him and he responds, "I don't think I want to marry you anymore you're not clean enough to bring home to my mother."(120-121). Stella also demonstrates her cruelty at the end of the story when she decides to let the doctor bring her sister to a mental ward, going along with Stanley's plan to get rid of her. Stella evokes a kind of social norm of acceptable sane behavior.
Stanley overhears these comments as they are ‘unaware of his presence’ (S4:pg.164*; and wants to dispose of Blanche to protect his marriage as Blanche has a hysterical determination to urge Stella to leave Stanley. Stanley refuses to accept Blanches’ conduct as she had no right to intervene and arbitrate as a guest in Stanley’s home supporting the idea that Stanley was preparing her downfall all along.