Summary Of A Streetcar Named Desire By Tennessee Williams

Firstly, the reader may initially feel Blanche is completely responsible or at least somewhat to blame, for what becomes of

Blanche has a devastating and scarring past in which her tragic flaw originates from. The elements of love, sex, and death haunt her until she is unable to handle it any longer and loses what is left of her sanity and sparks her unstable mind. To expatiate, Blanche was once married to the love of her life, Allen Grey, until she found

During scene one, the audience is introduced to Blanche as Stella's sister, who is going to stay with her for a while. Blanch tries her best to act normal and hide her emotion from her sister, but breaks down at the end of scene

One of the roles of this excerpt is to provide the background towards understanding Blanche, and the justifications for her mental state and actions. It is evident that in the past she belonged to a higher class where extravagance was common. But when her family in

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.

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.

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.

A Streetcar Named Desire is a socially challenging play in light of the way in which Tennessee Williams depicts the capacity of human nature for brutality and deceit.  He takes the viewpoint that, no matter how structured or 'civilized' society is, all people will rely on their natural animal instincts, such as dominance and deception, to get themselves out of trouble at some stage in life.  William's has created three main characters, Blanche Dubois, Stella Kowalski and Stanley Kowalski. Each of these characters is equally as civilized as the next, yet all are guilty of acts of savagery on different levels.  Throughout the play Williams symbolically relates these three characters to animals, 'savages,' through the disclosure of

As the play begins it tells how blanche arrives at New Orleans with one goal, to find her sister named Stella. After many years of not seeing her sister Blanche had found her in a place called “Elysian Fields”. Blanche’s first thought about that area was unpleasant, but as she was alone her sister appeared and tears of joy came roaring down both their eyes. It had

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.

These events have caused Blanche to lose her grip on reality and slip into insanity. From the beginning, she had a sense of grandiose, thinking she was better than everyone she talked too, including her sister. During a conversation with Mitch she recalls the moment when her husband killed himself and she hears polka music. At the end of the delusion she expresses, “There now, the shot! It always stops after that.” She is relived when she hears the gunshot because she knows the delusion ends there. She comes off as cynical in this scene to be relived by the sound of her husbands death. Her relief also goes to show that this delusion is something that happens often. She also suffers from obsessive behavior with her appearance. The first tendency is that she is constantly taking several baths through out the day. In the film, she couldn’t walk by a mirror without looking in it and fixing her hair. This goes beyond narcissistic behavior and into obsessive compulsive disorder. At the end of the play Blanche seems to be expecting a suitor to take her away, she questions, “Is it the gentleman I was expecting from Dallas?” There is actually no suitor to pick her up but instead it is a psych ward. She panics for a second but is calmed when she sees the doctor but her delusions make her see a suitor. At this point she has given in to the insanity and no longer has any grip of

     Blanche appears at the apartment house where her sister, Stella, lives. She brings with her a trunk of fancy clothing,

These experiences of such trauma has lead her to be extremely concerned about her image which is because she is afraid of death and she has done everything to keep herself feeling and looking young. An example of the trauma that has shaped her is the story of when she was young, in love, and recently married and they took a trip to the Moon Lake Casino, and “Suddenly in the middle of the dance the boy I had married broke away from me and ran out of the casino. A few moments later ---a shot![The polka stops abruptly. BLANCHE rises stiffly. Then the polka resumes in a major key.

A world where she is in the prime of her youth, laden with young, rich, gentleman admirers who abide to her bidding. She prefers to live in this fantasy world to distract her from the plight she currently faces in the present or her past promiscuous lifestyle. Blanche’s mental issues started when she came home to find her husband in bed with another man ( a double blow in the sense that her husband is unfaithful to her and is homosexual) leading to him taking his own life, widowing her in the

There were multiple things that were completely out of Blanche's control that led to the eventual mental breakdown. The first of many is the loss of her childhood home and family. Blanche's sister, Stella, had already left her to go build a life with her husband, so when she continues to lose things that tie her to the place she grew up, it plays a big role in her mental instability. Blanche is clearly shaken when telling her sister that she lost Belle Reve, Stella describes her episode as a "hysterical outburst." (Williams 25-26) She loses her husband when he commits suicide