In his book the frog and the Ox, Aesop states “Self-conceit leads to self-destruction” meaning that over bragging and exaggerating about yourself could be the cause of your self-destruction in the end. This quote could be best used in describing the situation that takes place in a Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. Many of Tennessee Williams’ work deals with the difference between reality vs. perception and his play A Streetcar Named Desire was no exception. He portrays Blanche Dubois as a sexually promiscuous, emotionally disturbed, fabricator who has to continually revert back and forth between reality and the imaginary world she created. In her attempts to escape reality Blanche exaggerates her status in society while subtly mocking her sister’s and husband living environment. Haunted by secrets from her past Blanche puts up a facade to avoid any discussion involving the circumstances of her relocating to New Orleans. Eventually, Blanche’s lies become too much for her to handle and she becomes unable to determine what is real and what an illusion is thus leading to her downfall.
Blanches arrives in New Orleans and immediately starts telling stories she conjured up. The moment she steps foot into Stanley’s and Stella’s apartment she creates this upper class world that she’s from while deliberately avoiding any discussion involving Belle Reve. One of first lies Blanche tells is that consuming too many drinks isn’t good for a women’s reputation when we for a fact know she already consumed a cup of whisky before Stella entered. Blanche downed the whisky instead of taking sips which suggest that she is used to drinking it but she hides it so her illusion of southern women isn’t ruined. However, Stanley doesn’t for a se...
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...Allan was never okay, he was never truly in love with her. In the end due to her lack of understanding about life it was Blanche who ended up hurting herself.
Blanche’s downfall in A Streetcar Named Desire was inevitable. She never had a clear understanding of how life worked. So much had happened in her past that she had to escape into an illusion but not even that could save her from her ultimate reality. Throughout the play she tells so many lies that she begins to believe them herself. Blanche tried to maintain her image of a ideal southern women but that image for her was lost back at Belle Reve when she began having sexual relation with varies men and abusing alcohol. When ever lie she told began to unravel she again sort comfort in her fantasies. In the end it was her habit of reverting back and forth between reality and fantasy that led to her downfall.
Identity in Contemporary American Drama – Between Reality and Illusion Tennessee Williams was one of the most important playwrights in the American literature. He is famous for works such as “The Glass Menagerie” (1944), “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1947) or “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)”. As John S. Bak claims: “Streetcar remains the most intriguing and the most frequently analyzed of Williams’ plays.” In the lines that follow I am going to analyze how the identity of Blanche DuBois, the female character of his play, “A Streetcar Named Desire”, is shaped. Firstly, we learn from an interview he gave, that the character of Blanche has been inspired from a member of his family.
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.
Stella states that Blanche’s life has been heavily affected by the death of her husband, Allan. Blanche’s marriage “killed her illusions” which can be interpreted literally. Blanche states that she fell in love “all at once and much, much too completely,” however, her love was unrequited since instead of returning the love Blan... ... middle of paper ... ... o have experienced some sorrow,” which Mitch agrees with, thus revealing that he has been affected by the loss of this girl.
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.
This essay will describe whether or not Blanches’ unfortunate eventual mental collapse was due to her being a victim of the society she went to seek comfort in, or if she was solely or at least partly responsible. The factors and issues that will be discussed include, Blanches’ deceitful behaviour and romantic delusions which may have lead to her eventual downfall, the role Stanley ended up playing with his relentless investigations of her past and the continuous revelations of it, the part society and ‘new America’ played in stifling her desires and throwing her into a world she could not relate to or abide by.
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.
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 gunshot and polka music in her head.
...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.
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 sets the decaying values of the antebellum South against those of the new America. The civil, kindly ways of Blanche’s past are a marked contrast to the rough, dynamic New Orleans inhabited by Stella and Stanley, which leads Tennessee Williams’s “tragedy of incomprehension” (qtd. in Alder, 48). The central protagonist, Blanche, has many flaws; she lies, is vain and deceitful, yet can be witty and sardonic. These multifaceted layers balance what Jessica Tandy, who played Blanche in the first stage production in 1947, “saw as her ‘pathetic elegance’ . . . ‘indomitable spirit and ‘innate tenderness’” (Alder 49). Through a connected sequence of vignettes, our performance presented a deconstruction of Blanche that revealed the lack of comprehension and understanding her different facets and personas created. Initially Blanche is aware of what she is doing and reveals
She is introduced as a fragile woman, who the readers begin to feel sympathy for her. She had been asked to leave her job, and she lost the family estate. The readers also learn that Blanche is conflicted with her past; she tries to hide who she was.... ... middle of paper ...
Tennessee Williams explores in his play” A Streetcar Named Desire”, suggests the main protagonist, Blanche, who has ruins her reputation due to her adversity. She is kick out of Laurel. She have no choice, but to move to her sister’s house. This place can allow her to create a new identity and new life. However when Blanche is revealed , it cause her to choose to live in her own fantasy world , because she cannot face the harsh reality. The Play” A Streetcar Named Desire”, by Tennessee Williams illustrates that sensitive people may succumb to fantasy to survive when they faced adversity, ,which forsake their identity to find an acceptable existence.
One character that has been plagued by betrayal, throughout her entire existence, is Blanche. Blanche’s husband, Allen, first betrays her. She catches him with another man and then shortly after he commits suicide. Being one of the influences behind his death, Blanche began to carry the guilt around with her. Their young love blinds them and hides all the obstacles they had to face. After catching him, she felt like she had lost part of herself, and after he shot himself, she felt like she
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,
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.