Character Analysis: A Streetcar Named Desire

886 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: A streetcar named desire characteritic of blanche

Blanche has a traumatic dark past. She pretends to be someone that she wasn't to escape reality and mask her true colours. She has been through life changing experiences that emotionally and mentally effected her and shaped who she is in the present time. First Blanche wants to be loved so badly and will do anything to find a man who can love and support her. She craves the feeling of being loved and being desired by a man. As a result this caused her to be so blind and wanting the attention from her husband Allan Grey that she didn't see that he was in fact homosexual. She felt wanted by him. She relied heavily on her husbands love and affection. She uses younger men to relive the love that she had with her husband. She also chases Mitch …show more content…

Her past experiences causes her to act that way. She fantasizes about having this perfect husband that has lots of money with a perfect house and perfect kids. The paper lantern symbolizes Blanche as a person, it symbolizes her attempt to escape reality and uses the light to help hide her true beauty. Blanche has a hard time recognizing fantasy vs reality when she moves in with Stella because she pretends that nothing happened and everything is okay. She lives in this fantasy world and acts like a proper well mannered young women when her past shows the complete opposite. She ignores the fact that she had an affair when a student and was fired from her job. She lies to Mitch and puts up this image of a perfect young women because she wants him to want to be with her. This helps explain why she states in the book that she relies on the kindness of stranger because this strangers do not know anything about her, she can tell them whatever she wants and put up an imagine of someone whom she isn't. In the book blanche says to Mitch “I don't want realism! I want magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it! – Don’t turn the light on!” This shows that Blanche will lie to people just to get them to like her, She doesn't care about realism she will do/say anything to anyone that will get

Show More
Related

  • Stanley Kowalski’s Violence in A Streetcar Named Desire

    2008 Words  | 5 Pages

    As Stanley continues torturing Blanche and draws Stella and Mitch away from her, Blanche’s sanity slowly dwindles. Even though she lied throughout the play, her dishonesty becomes more noticeable and irrational due to Stanley's torment about her horrible past. After dealing with the deaths of her whole family, she loses Belle Reve, the estate on which her and her sister grew up. This is too much for Blanche to handle causing her moral vision to be blurred by “her desperate need to be with someone, with ancestors for models who indulged in “epic fornications” with impunity, [Blanche] moves through the world filling the void in her life with lust” (Kataria 2). She also loses a young husband who killed himself after she found out he was gay when she caught him with another man. After that traumatic experience she needed “a cosy nook to squirm herself into because ...

    Read More

  • The Interrelationship of Characters and Themes in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire

    435 Words  | 1 Pages

    In this play the character blanche exhibits the theme of illusion. Blanche came from a rocky past. Her young husband killed himself and left her with a big space in her heart to fill. Blanche tried to fill this space with the comfort of strangers and at one time a young boy. She was forced to leave her hometown. When she arrives in New Orleans, she immediately begins to lie and give false stories. She takes many hot bathes, in an effort to cleanse herself of her past. Blanche tries also to stay out of bright lights. She covers the light bulb (light=reality) in the apartment with a paper lantern. This shows her unwillingness to face reality but instead live in an illusion. She also describes how she tells what should be the truth. This is a sad excuse for covering/lying about the sinful things she has done. Furthermore, throughout the story she repeatedly drinks when she begins to be faced with facts. All these examples, covering light, lying, and alcoholism show how she is not in touch with reality but instead living in a fantasy world of illusion.

    Read More

  • Blanche is Responsible for her own Fate in a Street Car Named Desire

    1067 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis Of A Streetcar Named Desire

    860 Words  | 2 Pages

    Blanche’s immoral and illogical decisions all stem from her husband's suicide. When a tragedy happens in someone’s life, it shows the person’s true colors. Blanche’s true self was an alcoholic and sex addict, which is displayed when “She rushes about frantically, hiding the bottle in a closet, crouching at the mirror and dabbing her face with cologne and powder” (Williams 122). Although Blanche is an alcoholic, she tries to hide it from others. She is aware of her true self and tries to hide it within illusions. Blanche pretends to be proper and young with her fancy clothes and makeup but is only masking her true, broken self.

    Read More

  • Character Conflict in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire

    572 Words  | 2 Pages

    Blanche had a desire for sex in general to cope with her divorce and the loss of her family; she just needed to feel loved. Stanley expressed his hidden desire for Blanche by being cruel to her through the whole story, and then having sex with her. Mitch showed his desire for Blanche by asking her to marry him. Stella had a desire for Stanley’s love and for Blanche’s well-being. The play is a display of the drama involved in families, and it shows that sometimes people have to make decisions and choose one relationship over another.

    Read More

  • Blanche Dubois: A Tragic Hero

    876 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Blanche's Mental Illness In A Streetcar Named Desire

    239 Words  | 1 Pages

    Blanche suffers from a mental illness and as well as having a loss grip on reality near the end of the play as she struggles to believes a wealthy man wants to take her away. Blanche lies repetitively throughout the play and successfully ruses Stella and Mitch into viewing her as a prim and proper lady. She even attempts her desire to deceive Mitch, so he would marry her, which almost works. Blanche has a habit of flirting indiscreetly, especially with younger men and even reveals to Stella that she flirted with Stanley. Blanche endlessly feels the need to bath, possibly because she feels dirty and ashamed of the past and wishes to wash it away. Blanche has a drinking problem as she cannot stay away from alcohol. She despises standing in the

    Read More

  • Madness In A Streetcar Named Desire

    1283 Words  | 3 Pages

    Blanche also becomes disconnected from reality because of her delusions of music and gunshots from her husband’s death. She seeks relationships with strangers in the hopes of recreating the love she had for her husband. When the relationship fails to satisfy her craving for love, she sinks further into her fantasy. When Mitch rejects her, saying “I don 't think I want to marry you anymore.” (Williams 131) she once again finds comfort in her fantasy. She has sunk so far into her fantasy that she has a response to all of Stanley’s questions. She is no longer up holding the illusion for others. She truly believes her delusions enough to maintain the façade while she is

    Read More

  • Fantasy and Illusion in A Streetcar Named Desire

    1196 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...es and thinks that her hopes will not be destroyed. Thirdly, Blanche thinks that strangers are the ones who will rescue her; instead they want her for sex. Fourthly, Blanche believes that the ones who love her are trying to imprison her and make her work like a maid imprisoned by them. Fifthly, Blanche’s superiority in social status was an obscure in her way of having a good social life. Last but not least, Blanche symbolizes the road she chose in life- desire and fantasy- which led her to her final downfall.

    Read More

  • The Desires in A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

    738 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • How Is Blanche Dubois A Dynamic

    1983 Words  | 4 Pages

    Blanche Dubois is a dynamic character that at first, is very difficult to figure out. She hides behind confusing stories and lies to protect herself from her traumatic past. In the begin of the play William’s leaves multiple clues to Blanche’s lying nature. She tells a strange tale of Bella Rev and challenges Stanley every chance she gets. She has many odd actions however I believe that these action, particularly her interactions with the newspaper boy and her fear of the light have a deeper meaning. At the end of the play she is unable to deal with the mess she has made and as a result her subconscious takes over. She can no longer deal with the crumbling remains of her life and no one else can either. As a result, she is institutionalized at the end of the play. But her institutionalization and lies don’t make her a bad person. One needs to look at the motive behind her lies and actions to disover the truth.

    Read More

  • Essay Comparing A Streetcar Named Desire And The Great Gatsby

    1685 Words  | 4 Pages

    She created illusions to make herself seem more appealing and less vulnerable. As an example, Blanche used darkness as a way to shield her old appearance. During scene five, Blanche explains to Stella why she hid her appearance, “ When people are soft … they’ve got to put on soft colors … put a paper lantern over the light … you’ve got to be soft and attractive … I don’t know how much longer I can turn the trick”(Williams 79). Blanche uses a paper lantern as a representation of her image. She runs away from light by hiding in the dark to cover up her aged appearance, just like how a paper lantern softens the light and removes any imperfections when it is placed over a bulb. Therefore, it represents the illusions she created to make her seem younger than she appears. In addition, Blanche has also lied to Stanley to make it appear like she has protection. In scene ten, when Stanley and Blanche are home alone, Blanche lies to Stanley about Shep Huntleigh, “Then - just now - this wire - inviting me on a cruise of the caribbean … this man is from Dallas where gold spouts out of the ground”(Williams 124). Blanche makes up this fib about someone rich and successful coming to save her. She creates this illusion for protection so she can prevent Stanley from destroying and ruining her. Overall, both characters have covered up their sins and failures by creating a fake image that is accepted by

    Read More

  • Blanche Dubois Research Paper

    831 Words  | 2 Pages

    The character of Blanche Dubois demonstrates a woman reduced to youth and beauty. The main reason for Blanche’s concern over her looks is because she is 30 years old. A woman was expected to marry and have children as soon as possible during this time. Blanche is older and does not want Mitch to know her past or her age, because neither will be to her credit. She lies and omits the truth about herself

    Read More

  • What Does The Paper Lantern Symbolize Blanche Dubois

    1156 Words  | 3 Pages

    Blanche once expected her life as a woman in her early thirties to be parallel to Stella’s: married with a roof over her head, friends, and a child on the way. However, like the naked light bulb, Blanche is pale and plain and will eventually burn-out. Her lies can only fuel her enjoyment until this paper lantern, which protects her lies, is ripped off. Immediately after Mitch confronts Blanche about how she refuses to go on dates with him during the daytime when it is light, “he tears the paper lantern off the light bulb” in order to see Blanche clear and plain (Williams 144; scene 9). Mitch rips off Blanche’s symbolic protective shield and she then begins to shed light on the truth behind her previous affairs with men. She can no longer hide behind her lies, as she has been exposed for the manipulative woman she really is. Nonetheless, while on her relentless search for unattainable perfection Blanche does not want to be seen in the light because she prefers to keep the truth about her rocky past hidden in the

    Read More

  • What Does The Light Symbolize In A Streetcar Named Desire

    233 Words  | 1 Pages

    Blanche, although her name in French means ‘white’, is a very dark character. She is seen as one who hides in the shadows, never wanting to be seen in the light. Blanche attempts to hide her true nature, past wrong doings, and her fading beauty from the world. By hiding from the light, she is trying to elude reality, which light clearly represents in this play. It is first known that Blanche does not enjoy the light in scene one: “And turn that over-light off! Turn that off! I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare” (Williams 120).

    Read More

More about Character Analysis: A Streetcar Named Desire

Open Document