Moving forward, Blanche’s masculinity influences her decision making in the present because she interferes with her sister’s marriage, as well as lies to protect her dirty past in a failed attempt to hide her insecurities. When Blanche arrives in Elysian Fields, she sees that her sister’s marriage is far from perfect, and that her husband is quite a brute. Due to her past of sexual misconduct and defensiveness at the Flamingo, Blanche does the unthinkable and tries to interfere. BLANCHE “When I found out you’d been insane enough to come back in here after what happened – I started to rush in after you! Your fix is worse than mine is! Only you’re not being sensible about it. I’m going to do something. Get a hold of myself and make myself a …show more content…
Years ago, people would not comment on the state of other’s personal relations, especially not women. Embracing her sisterhood, Blanche tries to save Stella which shows masculinity because Blanche takes charge and the male character in question, Stanley, now feels his dominance is threatened. These actions make Blanche a target for Stanley, and in consequence leads to the rape and her ultimate distrust in the world. Since Stanley is growing tired of Blanche criticizing him and his behaviour, he decides to do research and discovers the promiscuous past of Blanche DuBois. Lying to protect her image further demonstrates Blanche’s inability to be content with her true self. STANLEY “Lie number one: All this squeamishness she puts on! Sister Blanche is no lily. She moved to the Flamingo! A second class hotel which has the advantage of not interfering in the private social life of the personalities there. She pulled the wool over your eyes as much as …show more content…
It is understandable as to why she kept her “job” confidential. Not only was it taboo for women to work, but a career such as prostitution is shameful and could have caused her only living family to denounce her. Keeping secrets and creating this alter ego proves her intelligence as well as Blanche’s capabilities; she is not as weak as everyone thinks. This behaviour, though does infringe on Blanche reaching self-actualization as she is not secure with the ideas of her true self and represses those memories. Altogether, Blanche’s behaviour noticeably demonstrates resistance to societal norms depicting that she does not act like a typical lady and showcases her insecurities discouraging her self-actualization. Coincidentally, Hamlet conducts abnormal behaviours like contemplating suicide and procrastinating violence due to his feminine shaped personality. Hamlet’s depression is truly expressed in his infamous soliloquy ‘To be or not to be’. In this, he internally contemplates suicide, and feels he needs to escape life rather than facing the issues, which is a typical female trait. HAMLET “To be, or not to be? That is the
Within Tennessee Williams's story about love and abuse within marriage and challenging familial ties, there lie three very different characters that all see the world in vastly different ways. These members of a family that operate completely outside of our generation’s norms, are constantly unsure of themselves and their station within the binary not only of their familial unit, but within the gender binary that is established for them to follow. Throughout the story of the strange family, each character goes through a different arch that changes them irrevocably whether it is able to be perceived or not by those around them. The only male, Stanley is initially the macho force in the home who controls everything without question. He has no consequences for his actions against his wife and is never held accountable for treating the people around him poorly; this lasts until Blanche arrives. Blanche is an outwardly demure, but spirited young woman who after experiencing untold misfortune breaks mentally and decides to no longer care what others may think of her. She lives her life lavishly and foolishly by having dalliances with younger or richer men who shower her with gifts and attention to get sex from her all too willing form. Her effect on Stanley is one of temptation and challenge; she continually tries to convince her sister that she is too good for the man and in turn fosters a resentment for her in him. Stella acts as the antithesis of Stanley and Blanche’s extreme personalities. She is innocence and purity where they are the darkness that threatens to overtake her life. Throughout, Stella is a pawn that they both try to use against the other to no real avail as she is determined to make the best choice for herself. In th...
Blanche Dubois always felt she was loved and admired by many. However, things changed after her husbands tragic death. Life was not easy for her, as she became lonely and slept with different men. Her loneliness led her into moving unexceptedly with her sister Stella. However, this only caused more troubles in her life. She was not very well liked by her brother in law, Stanley Kowalski. Stanley was from Poland, and had very little education. He was also a very strong, good looking man. He was loyal to his friends, passionate to his wife, but extremely cr...
Blanche, in particular, is much more of an anachronism than Stella, who has, for the most part, adapted to the environment of Stanley Kowalski. Finally, both Stella and Blanche are or have been married. It is in their respective marriages that we can begin to trace the profound differences between these two sisters. Where Blanche's marriage, to a man whom she dearly loved (Miller 43), proved catastrophic to her, Stella's marriage seems to be fulfilling her as a woman. Blanche's marriage to a young homosexual, and the subsequent tragedy that resulted from her discovery of her husband's degeneracy and her inability to help him, has been responsible for much of the perversity in her life.
The question asked by Hamlet “To be, or not to be?” (III.i.57.) analyzes the deeper thoughts of the young prince of Denmark. In Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the battle between living life or dying runs repeatedly through Hamlet’s head. In this famous soliloquy, Hamlet ponders the feelings going through his head, during his monologue, on whether he should live with the disruptions in his life or end it all at once. Hamlet’s life, both fulfilling and depressing, made him act out more when it came to interacting with other people. With all the people who admired him, he still managed to push everyone away using his sarcastic antics to degrade them intentionally. Not only does he portray this type of personality to people, but the change in so
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 flashbacks about him. She could hear the gun shot and polka music in her head. After Alan’s death, she was plagued by the deaths of her relatives. Stella moved away and did not have to deal with the agony Blanche faced each day. Blanche was the one who stuck it out with her family at Belle Reve where she had to watch as each of her remaining family members passed away. “I took the blows in my face and my body! All of those deaths! The long parade to the graveyard! Father, Mother! Margaret, that dreadful way! You just came home in time for the funerals, Stella. And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. Funerals are quiet, but deaths—not always” (Scene 1, page 1546). Blanche lost Belle Reve because of all the funeral expenses. Belle Reve had been in her family for generations, and it slipped through her fingers while she watched helplessly. Blanche’s anguish caused her loneliness. The loneliness fueled her abundance of sexual encounters. Her rendezvous just added to her problems and dirtied her rep...
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 explaining to Stella how their old home, the Belle Reve, was "lost." It is inferred that the home had to be sold to cover the massive funeral expenses due to the many deaths of members of the Dubois family. As Blanche whines to her sister, "All of those deaths! The parade to the graveyard! Father, mother! Margaret, that dreadful way!" (21). The audience sees this poor aging woman, who has lost so many close to her, and now her home where she grew up. How could anyone look at her, and not feel the pain and suffering that she has to deal with by herself? Williams wants the audience to see what this woman has been through and why she is acting the way she is. Blanche's first love was also taken from her. It seems that everyone she loves is dead except for her sister. Death plays a crucial role in Blanche's depression and other mental irregularities. While these circumstances are probably enough for the audience to feel sympathy for Blanche, Williams takes it a step further when we see Blanche's...
When Stella goes back to Stanley, Blanche becomes concerned about her. Blanche's love for Stella blinds her to the truth about Stella’s relationship with Stanley. This is shown when Blanche talks about how she is going to rescue both of them from Stanley, even when Stella says, “... I am not in anything that I have a desire to get out of” (65). Stella tries to explain, that “things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark - that sort of make everything else seem - unimportant” (70). This statement, however, only supports Blanche’s belief that Stella chose to blind herself for “brutal desire” (70), and that this choice will only lead Stella down a disastrous path. Blanche compares this brutal desire to the streetcar, Desire, that both of them rode to this run down part of New Orleans. In this one line Williams is able reveal the transgression each of the characters with chosen blindnesses will go through. Blanche does not fully realize how Stella feels until they step outside into the better lit living space, where she can see Stella hug
Blanche who had been caring for a generation of dying relatives at Belle Reve has been forced to sell the family plantation. Blanche is a great deal less realistic than Stanley and lives in illusions which bring upon her downfall.
Her first problem is with the heroine of the play, Blanche DuBois, who, she claims, is "ironically made guilty for her own victimization. No longer fully human, she is simply a metaphor of all that is vile about women. Blanche cannot, then, claim tragic stature or even our sympathy precisely because she is a victim of rape. And as she becomes responsible for her own victimization, Stanley is left to glory in his ascendancy. This aspect of Streetcar arises from the misogyny which colors the play…" (Lant 226). Admittedly, Blanche does flirt with Stanley briefly at the beginning of the play—just as many women playfully flirt with their brothers-in-law. But as her relationship with Stanley deteriorates, she makes it quite obvious to him that she loathes the sight of him. Though the world in which Lant lives may be one in which a woman, playfully sprinkling her brother-in-law ...
To conclude, the author portrays Blanche’s deteriorating mental state throughout the play and by the end it has disappeared, she is in such a mental state that doctors take her away. Even at this stage she is still completely un-aware of her surroundings and the state she is in herself.
Blanche may seem prideful, but it is a facade, like the rest of her. In reality, she has a very low self esteem. “Stella: And admire her dress and tell her she’s looking wonderful. That’s important with Blanche. Her little weakness.” (Williams 484). This is why she is so worried about her age and her appearance. She feels that since she is soft she must also be attractive in order to have protection and mean something. “People don’t see you - men don’t - don’t even admit your existence unless they are making love to you. And you’ve got to have your existence admitted by someone if you are going to have someone’s protection. . . . You’ve got to be soft and attractive. And I - I’m fading now!” (Williams 515). Blanche is so afraid of not being attractive enough she has relied on lies and deception to create a fantasy to escape realism. If only she saw her worth and loved herself for who she was, she would not be desiring to be acknowledged by men or to create a fantasy. Lack of self-esteem is the hidden part of Blanche’s tragic
Firstly, the reader may initially feel Blanche is completely responsible or at least somewhat to blame, for what becomes of her. She is very deceitful and behaves in this way throughout the play, particularly to Mitch, saying, ‘Stella is my precious little sister’ and continuously attempting to deceive Stanley, saying she ‘received a telegram from an old admirer of mine’. These are just two examples of Blanches’ trickery and lying ways. In some ways though, the reader will sense that Blanche rather than knowingly being deceitful, actually begins to believe what she says is true, and that she lives in her own dream reality, telling people ‘what ought to be the truth’ probably due to the unforgiving nature of her true life. This will make the reader begin to pity Blanche and consider whether these lies and deceits are just what she uses to comfort and protect herself. Blanche has many romantic delusions which have been plaguing her mind since the death of her husband. Though his death was not entirely her fault, her flirtatious manner is a major contributor to her downfall. She came to New Orleans as she was fired from...
was lobotomised in his absence and later institutionalised leading. many critics to believe that the character of Blanche may have arisen. from events in his own life. Blanche's tragic past involving both the death of her "young" husband and her consequent promiscuity with. The "young men" created an overwhelming amount of emotion for Blanche.
One cant imagine how it must feel to lose the ones they love and hold dear, but to stay afterwards and mourn the loss of the many is unbearable. Blanche has had a streak of horrible luck. Her husband killing himself after she exposed her knowledge about his homosexuality, her advances on young men that led to her exile and finally her alcoholism that drew her life to pieces contemplated this sorrow that we could not help but feel for Blanche throughout the drama. Blanche’s desire to escape from this situation is fulfilled when she is taken away to the insane asylum. There she will have peace when in the real world she only faces pain.
A Streetcar Named Desire is a play of multifaceted themes and diverse characters with the main antagonists of the play, Blanche and Stanley infused by their polarized attitudes towards reality and society ‘structured on the basis of the oppositions past/present and paradise lost/present chaos’(*1). The effect of these conflicting views is the mental deterioration of Blanche’s cerebral health that, it has been said; Stanley an insensitive brute destroyed Blanche with cruel relish and is the architect of her tragic end. However, due to various events in the play this statement is open to question, for instance, the word ‘insensitive’ is debatable, ‘insensitive’ can be defined as not thinking of other people’s feelings but Stanley is aware of what he’s doing understanding the mental impairment he causes Blanche.