Blanche Dubois Punishment

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To begin, acting on sexual desires drives the play’s characters to their demise or to disgrace. This punishment does not fit the crime. The first case of this is seen in the main character of the play, Blanche Dubois. After the death of her husband Blanche was scared and alone. She states that “After the death of Allen intimacies with strangers was all I seemed able to fill my empty heart with” (Williams 118). Blanche went looking for comfort in many different men in orderer to fill the hole in her heart that her husband left. What results from this is her eviction from Belle Reve, her exile from Laurel and at the end of the play her expulsion from society. Blanche did nothing but act on her most basic of urges and because of this people/society “Regarded [her] …show more content…

Blanche claims that Belle Reve was lost because the men of her family “exchanged the land for their epic fornications”(43). Her relatives acted on their biological urges and lost everything. Lastly, Blanche’s husband, Allen Grey committed suicide because his sexuality was not accepted.“Then I found out. In the worst of possible ways. By coming into a room I thought was empty- which wasn’t empty, but had two people in it…” (95). Blanche reveals this when telling Mitch about her husbands homosexuality. “He’d stuck the revolver in his mouth, and fired- so that the back of his head had been- blown away....It was because- on the dance-floor- unable to stop myself- I’d suddenly said “I know. I know! You disgust me…”(96). Blanche says this in reference to her husbands suicide. Blanche saying “you disgust me” speaks to the general thoughts on homosexuality in the 1940’s/50’s. If it was known that someone was a gay they would risk being fired, public ridicule, or even jail time. Blanche’s husband killed himself rather than live in a world where he could not express his deepest desires and still be accepted in

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