How Is Blanche Dubois A Dynamic

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.

Using Lies for Protection: The Story of Blanche Dubois

At first Blanche DuBois, from Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire is seen as a standard everyday girl.

A down on her luck schoolteacher, she goes to visit her sister and for the summer. At first all of Blanche’s strange mannerisms can simply be written off as nerves devoted to meeting her sister’s husband in a strange unsettling flat. It isn’t until after we learn of the sudden suicide of her husband, that her behavior begins to click into place. As the story progresses she is slowly seen as insane by everyone else.However I am under the belief that Blache isn’t as dysfunctional as everyone thinks she is. I believe in Tennessee Williams's most famous work A Streetcar Named Desire the off center character of Blanche Dubois is not a simply “crazy” manipulative person. She uses her actions and words as a defense mechanism to deal with the trauma of her life. Just because many characters do not understand her motives, this doesn’t mean that she’s an evil, vile

person.
Anyone who has read A Streetcar Named Desire knows that Blanche has many strange mannerism that often go unexplained in the play. Throughout the story, she talks to herself constantly apparently singing nonsense, only to annoy Stanley. However, when we take a closer look at some of the lyrics that Blanche so freely explains a different conclusion can be made. In scene seven while Stanley is accusing her of her many lies she can be heard singing, “It’s just a Barnum and Bailey world, Just as phoney as it can be- but it wouldn’t be make-believe If you believe in me”( pg. 1156). If Blanche is referring to herself in this song, then she is admitting that she knows that a majority of what she says is not true. According to Drobot, she does this because “it is preferable to lead an imaginary but enchanted life - than a real but dreary one”(pg. 3). She believes that if those around her would just believe in her, she would find a way to make them true, and then her dreadful past would cease to exist.
There are many narratives out there that simply paint Blanche as a damaging compulsive liar even though many of her lies have a reason behind them. She admits to Stella and herself that she is lying when in scene four, Stella asks what she is laughing at and she replies “Myself, myself, for being such a liar! I am writing a letter to Shep. Darling Sheep, I am spending the summer on the wing, making flying visits here and there. And who knows, perhaps I shall take a sudden notion to swoop down to Dallas!”(pg. 1144). Stella quickly blows off the conversation, putting aside what she had just heard, hoping that Blanche is merely joking. This is one of her first lies that she uses for protection. She doesn’t want her friends to know what’s become of her because she cannot stand the idea of being seen as sort of a failure. “Blanche tells a lot of lies during her stay with her sister and her husband. Stanley has detected her about her past in Laurel and he can also feel that something is wrong with the way Belle Reve was lost.” says Drobot (pg. 3). However what isn’t examined in the story is the reason behind Blanche’s lies. She lies mainly for protection to protect others from knowing the truth and to help keep herself living out her fantasy.
In scene two, Blanche feeds Stanley this outrageous tale of Belle Reve because that is what she believes to be true.When Stanley asks to see the bill of sale Stella claims “there weren’t any papers, she didn’t show any papers, I don’t care about papers”(1126). Regardless of Stella’s objections Stanley doesn’t believe Blanche, claiming that he’s being swindled. Drobot claims that “she' simply can't get past her values, her beliefs. The following examples support the latter situation: she tends to believe Blanche, and deny what her husband tries to make her aware of, or she cannot believe that Stanley actually raped Blanche” (pg. 1). This causes Stanley to do some digging, eventually discovering her past.
Blanche is unable to notice the danger of Stanley the way Stella does and that's why she freely insults him, which will later lead to another bigger “issue”. I believe that Blanche suffers from not being able to spot the obvious, because it is a result of her past. Perhaps she feels that if she was able to realize her husband's distress, she could have stopped his gruesome suicide. Stella, surprisingly is rather unbothered by Stanley's danger claiming “ Stanley’s always smashed things. “Why, on our wedding night- a soon as we came in here- he snatched off one of my slippers and rushed about the place smashing lightbulbs with it” “I was- sort of- thrilled by it.” (pg. 1140) A majority of the conflict between Stanley and Blanche comes from Stanley “trying to protect Stella from Blanche's influence” (Drobot, pg. 2). Everything that Blanche says Stanley always has a counter argument for, he always has a reason why this or that can’t be true. And Stella notices this danger, she talks to him about it. But in the end she does nothing choosing to side with her frightening husband than her delusional sister.
It may be an understatement to say that Blanche is considered strange by everyone except herself. Perhaps one of her strangest action is when she kisses an unknown newspaper boy without warning or reason. Before she kisses him she asks “ don’t you just love those long rainy afternoons in new orleans where an hour isn’t just an hour- but a little piece of eternity dropped in your hands- and who knows what to do with it?” (pg. 1148) She has no real motive to kiss the newspaper boy besides that it adds to her dramatic life. Cardullo states, “Blanche lets the Young Man leave the apartment finally, his innocence intact (except for a kiss) as, it could be said, she would have liked her own innocence left intact” (pg. 2). Later in the play Cardullo’s words stand true when the reader learns about Blanche’s many lies. Her life in Laurel, how for a while she stayed at the notorious Hotel Flamingo until she was basically evicted, and that she lost her job after having relations with an underage student.
In scene one of A Streetcar Named Desire the reader discovers that Blanche is terrified by the light which we later learns stands as a metaphor for the truth. In the first scene Blanche explains “But don’t you look at me, Stella, no, no, no, not until I’ve bathed and rested! And turn that over-light off! Turn that off! I won't be looked at in this merciless glare!” (pg. 1119). Later in scene seven when Mitch shows up, he behavior around the light begins to make much more sense. Blanche tells him “I like the dark. The dark is comforting to me” (pg. 1164). A few moments later when Mitch tears the paper lanter off of the light the following conversation occurs. Blanche asks”what did you do that for?” (pg 1165). Mitch responds by saying “so I can take a look at you good and plain!” (pg. 1165) When Blache accuses him of being insulting Mitch responds by saying “No just realistic” (pg. 1165) Blache yells “I don’t want realism. I want magic!” (pg. 1165) She then goes on to admit almost all her lies to Mitch while inventing a few more in the process. However she later claims “she never lied in her heart”(pg. 1166). This means that in her mind she began to believe her lies so much that she considered them to be truth. Blanche lied to him for one simple reason. She liked him. She could see a future with him. She saw with him a way out of all her lies, where Mitch would still love her, as long as he didn’t know the truth. And now that the truth is know Mitch wants nothing to do with her, as she expected. Blanche believes “that it is preferable to lead an imaginary but enchanted life - than a real but dreary one” (Drobot, pg. 3). However she discovers that this isn’t true when she realizes in the end her lies have been pushing away everyone that she loved.
When Stanley returns home and accuses her her subconscious cannot deal with it. She quickly makes up a story about going on a cruise, that in her mind will soften the blow. After her and Stanley’s relationship comes to a breaking point, she combust. When she realizes that her lies will no longer work she makes an unsuccessful last ditch phone, at the end realizes that she is “caught in a trap”(pg. 1170). She set up the trap herself without realizing it. Many of the conflicts would never have happened if Blanche would have faced the music and told the truth. Drobot references Aleksandar Sarovic who wrote "Narcissistic happiness is not good because it is largely based on illusions. "Any happiness a man exercises undeservedly by illusions will come back as payment in the form of pain.” (pg. 3) Blanche’s form of pain is Stanley finally calling her bluff and putting an end to her romantic life. After Stanley rapes Blanche, she begin to dislocate herself from others as we see in the last scene. She blocks almost everything out after that, even Stella.
At the end of the play where she is institutionalized, represents the end of her dramatic life. She has nowhere else to go. Stella can no longer care for her and Stanley can no longer put up with her. She has no other family, no one else to turn to since everyone she “knows” is a figment of her imagination. Drobot claims that this is because “Blanche's education and experiences have led to her being unable to give up the past and to adapt to the present. She persists on acting the role of Southen belle which she had been taught since she was young, until the end, when she is taken away by the doctor. “ (pg. 4).
Blanche Dubois is a fiction obsessed character that has many flaws. However we love her for her personality and her strange, unrealistic view of life. She used her lies as a barricade to protect herself from real life. Even though she was unable to realize it, when she came to stay with her sister, she was setting herself for failure. It’s almost as if she knew that she had reached the end of the line. And even though many believe that her lies and actions were ill fated and manipulative, she is still deserves to be treasured.