In Streetcar Named Desire, drinking is a way to escape from the lonely void created by her young husband’s death for Blanche Dubois. Drinking is often a way for people to escape from their current circumstances and forget about everything. In Streetcar Named Desire, it also relates to Blanche’s illusional world in the way that she wants to escape her past by being delusional and settling in as if it were reality. Through the motif of drinking, Williams reveals that escaping reality and living in a fantasy world will leave a person blind to the things around them. For Blanche alcohol is used as a means of escape from her past life and as a distraction from the real world. Blanche hates the way her past turned out and wants nothing more …show more content…
than to forget everything that she has been through. At the beginning of the play, Blanche discovers whiskey in Stella’s apartment and helps herself to a drink, placing it back afterwards. When Stella comes back, Blanche brings out the same liquor to drink some more. Blanche’s desperate behavior to drink the liquor implies that she might have an alcohol problem. “ I’m going to take just one little tiny nip more, sort of to put the stopper in, so to speak… Then put the bottle away so I won’t be tempted” (15). However, the reader soon learns that Blanche does have an alcohol problem when she lies about drinking alcohol. When Stanley offers her some, she declines and lies, saying that she “ rarely touches it” (26). Here then is an example of Blanche’s inability to tell the truth and her desire to be something different from what she actually is. The fact that her eyes instantly found the bottle is one indication of her problem. Her concealed drinking shows her desire to escape reality as well as the fact that she is quite adept at hiding facts about herself. Blanche is very concerned with keeping her delicately surface appearance intact. Main character Blanche Dubois uses alcohol to distract herself from reality and to retreat further into a world of fantasy and cleverly contrived artifice.
Habitual drinking isn’t ideal for a woman’s reputation in the 1940’s, so the habit is often hidden or disguised. In scene 5, Stella hands Blanche a Coke and tells her not to talk morbidly. Blanche asks for a shot of alcohol in the Coke, and Stella pours some whiskey into a glass, insisting that she likes waiting on her sister. “ Well honey, a shot never does any harm! Let me! You mustn’t n’ wait on me!” ( 92) Blanche hysterically promises to leave before Stanley kicks her out. Stella tries to calm her down as she pours the Coke, but accidentally spills some on Blanche’s “pretty white” skirt. Blanche shows uncomfortable strong emotion from her sister and then screams out as her drink spills. Stella sees for the first time that her sister is perhaps not quite mentally stable as her emotions ride for out of sync with the content of the exchange. Blanche drinks to escape the present and to blur the harsh edges of reality. When she thinks Stella has stained her skirt, she overreacts as though Stella has ruined her whole dream of herself, and she is overly relieved when the stain blots away. If the stain had stayed, Blanche would have seen herself as tarnished forever. The Coke spilling and foaming out of the bottle can be seen as a metaphor for Blanche- it stains her emotions spilling over, how herself is out of control, …show more content…
and the way the truth will spill out. As we can see Blanche drinks on the sly in order to withdraw from harsh reality.
A state of drunken stupor enables her to take a flight of imagination. When Blanche is own her own we discover a great deal about her personality. We see that Blanche continually lies about her drinking in order to portray herself as a true “lady”. When nobody is watching, Blanche consumes a reasonable amount of alcohol, leading her to destructive behavior as she deludes herself. In scene ten we see that Blanche has been drinking fairly steadily since Mitch left. “ How about taking a swim, a moonlight swim at the old rock-quarry? If anyone’s sober enough to drive a car! Ha-ha! Best way in the world to stop your head buzzing! (151) It is clear that Blanche, with the help of alcohol, has begun her retreat into a fantasy world. She dresses herself in a white satin gown and her rhinestone tiara. She stares at herself in the mirror and flirts with imagined suitors. Examining herself more closely, she catches her breath and slams down the mirror. It shatters. Blanche has been drinking to escape reality. She dresses herself in costume jewelry and gowns, but the only audience for her fantasy version of herself is herself. When she looks at herself more closely, though, even she can see through the illusion, and so she smashes the mirror, indicating the failure of her illusory world and also her nervous
breakdown. Notably, Blanche's deception of others and herself is not characterized by malicious intent, but rather a heartbroken and saddened retreat to a romantic time and happier moments before disaster struck her life. Blanche’s constant drinking is a strong form of symbolism. She is addicted to alcohol, which is in direct antithesis to the image she would like to portray of herself. She drinks because of everything she has been through and uses it as a defense mechanism to calm and soften the memories her life is full of. This reveals how weak and worn out she really is. Despite Blanche putting on the mask of innocence and purity, she is really a fraud who cannot stand to the reality in fear that she will be exposed for the person she really is. This can be seen in the play driven by the fantasy of blanche and other characters. The characters in the play hide from their reality by acting by acting as if the events they went through didn’t happen or were not important. The idea of illusion vs. reality seems to bring on the idea that these characters want to “ escape” their world. At the end of the play Tenesee Wiliams reveals that that fantasy is a vital force at play in every individual’s experience, despite reality’s inevitable triumph.
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.
Another way these characters avoid living their life is by drinking continuously, in a way to make the time pass by faster and forget. ?Haven?t you had enough? She loses count after 10 cocktails,? (pg.11) proving to the audience her own self denial, and how she wastes every day. Unfortunately, there are many, who in society today, do the same thing to get out of a situation they?re trying to hide or a difficult time they?re going through. This relates back to their affair which they?re obviously hiding and trying to get through this time in their life.
She passionately raves at length about the horrible deaths and her experience of loved ones dying around her; “all of those deaths… Father, Mother, Margaret, that dreadful way!” The horrific visions of bloated bodies and “the struggle for breath and breathing” have clearly cast a permanent effect on Blanche’s mind. She talks of the quiet funerals and the “gorgeous boxes” that were the coffins, with bitter, black humour. The deaths of Blanche and Stella’s family are important to the play as they highlight the desperation of Blanche’s situation through the fact that she has no other relative to turn to. This makes Stella’s decision at the end of the play seem even harsher than if Blanche had just simply shown up on her doorstep instead of going elsewhere.
The loss of her beloved husband kept Blanche’s mental state in the past, back when she was 16, when she only cared about her appearance. That is why at the age of 30 she avoids bright lights that reveal her wrinkles. Blanche does not want to remember the troubles of her past and therefore she attempts to remain at a time when life was simpler. This is reinforced by the light metaphor which illustrates how her life has darkened since Allan’s suicide and how the light of love will never shine as brightly for Blanche ever again. Although, throughout the play Blanche sparks an interest in Mitch, a friend of Stanley’s, who reveals in Scene three that he also lost a lover once, although his lover was taken by an illness, not suicide, and therefore he still searches for the possibility of love, when Blanche aims to find stability and security.
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.
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...
which, as Williams suggests, "was too great for her to contain". As to whether her escape was "madness" can be debatable - although Blanche is clearly unstable at many points, some believe that Blanche is not. actually insane, suggested by Stella's comment in Scene 11 - "I. couldn't believe her story and go on living with Stanley. " From her first appearance on stage, Blanche is presented as being.
From the first moment the Williams introduces Blanche, it is evident that she believes herself to be of a higher class, and this is shown with how uncomfortable she is around those of a lower class. When Blanche is shown an act of kindness from Eunice, “Why don’t you set down?” her response to this person of a lower class than herself is dismissive, “…I’d like to be left alone.” She instantly expects too much from a place called ‘Elysian Fields’. Blanche feels uneasy about being around those that are of a lower class, especially of those who she does not know, which is clear when she is reunited with her sister. She immediately becomes ostentatious in her actions, and begins to speak with “feverish vivacity”, “Stella, Oh Stella, Stella! Stella for Star!” Perhaps she is relieved to be with her sister once again, or it could be that she feels she now has someone to be dominant over, since she has little control over her own life. Blanche comes across as being very motherly towards Stella, “You messy child” in spite of the fact that Stella is soon to beco...
... ignorance; and this was the undeniable tragedy that caused her downfall in the end. Stanley was angry when Blanche told Stella that she did not like him, but he never gave her a chance. Stanley despised her from the beginning. Neither Stanley nor Mitch was intelligent enough to comprehend that not everything is black and white. They perceived her as a deceitful whore. Stella chose her violent husband over her sister. Also, Mitch could not overlook her mistakes. Mitch focused on her flaws which blinded him from seeing the beauty and love Blanche had to offer. Blanche wanted their love, but each of their individual flaws sunk her deeper into a hole. The people around Blanche were unwilling to change and develop an open-minded way of dealing with her situation. Blanche needed kindness and affection, but nobody was able to give it to her when she needed it the most.
...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.
Tennessee Williams gives insight into three ordinary lives in his play, “A Streetcar Named Desire” which is set in the mid-1930’s in New Orleans. The main characters in the play are Blanche, Stanley, and Stella. All three of these characters suffer from personalities that differentiate each of them to great extremes. Because of these dramatic contrarieties in attitudes, there are mounting conflicts between the characters throughout the play. The principal conflict lies between Blanche and Stanley, due to their conflicting ideals of happiness and the way things “ought to be”.
Blanche uses her dilutions and tries to sway Stella away from Stanley, yet Stella takes all these slanders and belittles them. Stella does this because she loves Stanley and since she is pregnant with his baby.
This gradual fall and loss of her sense of reality is truly tragic. Blanche is a person largely driven by the part of her that wants to be liked and be accepted. She cares greatly about how she is viewed and how she looks which is seen throughout the play. Even at the end when she’s living almost completely in the imaginations of her mind she asks Stella and Eunice how she looks before being taken away to an insane asylum. Tennessee Williams, the author of the play, uses all the conflict between Blanche and others, specifically Stanley, to show that fantasy is unable to overcome reality. Stanley and Blanche are both the epitomes of fantasy and reality. Stanley is a man focused on sexual drive, work, and fighting. He is exhibited as animalistic and strongly driven by his desires which is shown when he says, “Be comfortable. That's my motto up where I come from.” Stanley loves and searches after reality which is why he is so set on breaking down the facade he sees in Blanche. Blanche on the other hand is running from her reality and her past. Her fantasy of being high class and chaste is the exact opposite of her reality which is why she wants a life like that so badly. She wants marriage and stability, two things she was jealous of Stella having after arriving in New Orleans. Her fantasy she was building in her new life is shattered when Stanley is able to learn of her past and bring reality crashing down on her. Williams
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...
This can be symbolized by light. Blanche hates to be seen by Mitch, her significant other, in the light because it exposes her true identity. Instead, she only plans to meet him at night or in dark places. Also, she covers the lone light in Stella and Stanley’s apartment with a Chinese paper lantern. After Blanche and Mitch get into a fight, Mitch rips off the lantern to see what Blanche really looks like. Blanche angrily replies that she’s sorry for wanting magic. In the play, Blanche states “I don’t want realism, I want magic! [..] Yes, yes, 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!”(Williams 117). Blanche wants to escape reality, but this only leads to her self-destruction. It is the men in her life and past experiences that is the main cause of her self - destruction. One of these being the death of her young love, Allen Grey. During their marriage, Blanche, attached to the hip to this man, walked in on him with another man. She then brought the incident up at a bad time; soon after, Allen took his own life, which I believe was the first step to this so called “self-destruction. Blanche could never forgive herself of this. This is the truth of her past, therefore,