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Blanche Dubois In A Streetcar Named Desire

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The play, “A Streetcar Named Desire,” by Tennessee Williams is set in the city of New Orleans in a building called Elysian Fields. One of the main protagonists in the play is a woman named Blanche DuBois. She comes to Elysian Fields to visit her sister and escape her promiscuous past. However, the past catches up to Blanche in spite of her desperate attempts to avoid it. Blanche DuBois’ traits-insecure, weak, and deluded-led her down the path of the ultimate reality she feared so much. Blanche DuBois shows a lot of insecurity in the play. She is constantly avoiding the light to hide her appearance. Blanche told her sister, “You haven’t said a word about my appearance” (“A Streetcar”) because she knows that her looks are slipping, and …show more content…

Ever since her ex-husband killed himself, she has been spiraling in an ocean of guilt and emptiness. When people found out about her husband, Blanche’s reputation was gone. People saw her as a widow of a gay man and sympathized. She also had feelings of guilt because of her words caused Allan to kill himself. After this, she began to have sex with strangers in hotel rooms to obtain money. Alcohol was included in her actions to erase the past. Her mental state started dwindling faster when she lost her money and heritage home. This only got worse when she visited her sister in New Orleans. She saw the abusiveness of Stanley and Stella’s relationship, and how Stanley treated her. When she met Mitch it was a moment of opportunity. Even though he was in the same working class as Stanley, Mitch had a gentleman-like quality that seemed superior to Blanche. When Blanche first met Mitch, she said, “That one seems-superior to the others” (“A Streetcar”). Blanche thought of herself as superior because of the way she acted and dressed. Mitch dressed and acted the same way until he found out about Blanche’s reputation. Everything started going downhill when her reputation was revealed to everyone. Her magical dream was coming into light and revealing who she truly is. This was the tipping point of her mental state because she created this delusion to protect herself. It continued to spiral uncontrollably after Stella’s husband, Stanley, raped her. When Blanche told her sister, Stella didn’t believe her. This was the breaking point of Blanche’s mind. She made up a delusion that an old suitor named Shep would come and rescue her. A final hope for Blanche that someone will save her from this hole she dug herself in. In the end she was confronted by the doctors that would bring her to a mental hospital. She ended with a quote saying, “Whoever you are- I have always depended on the

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