Sympathy In A Streetcar Named Desire

Blanche’s dependent nature makes her particularly susceptible to the effects of guilt, a vulnerability which Williams creates in order to allow her emotions to become so extreme that they lead to insanity. At the play’s conclusion, she tells the doctor that she has “always depended on the kindness of strangers,” (235) and although insanity has by this point deprived Blanche of her grip on reality, her statement rings true. Indeed, from Blanche’s first moments on the stage, the audience witnesses her dependence on others in both her imposition on the Kowalski household and her constant need for Stella’s attention and assistance. Psychotherapist Nathaniel Branden reports in The Psychology of Self-Esteem that moral independence is an essential element of self-forgiveness; a lack of psychological autonomy contributes to feelings of worthlessness and unquenchable guilt (Branden 165). Consequently, Blanche’s total dependence on others renders her incapable of forgiving herself for the role she played in Allan’s suicide. Instead of accepting her error and moving on, Blanche remains trapped in her emotional anguish, which grows in intensity and destroys her mental health. Williams creates in Blanche this psychological vulnerability because it allows him to imbue her with guilt that is severe enough to lead to madness.

Williams uses a different type of savagery in Blanche's character. Blanche is more deceptive and exaggerated than Stanley, trying to hide the effects of her hard life from others through constant bathing, avoiding bright lights and by lying, and from herself, by drinking.

Belle Reve has been lost. He does not care for Belle Reve as a bit of

Williams presents conflict between old and new in Scene Two by the way in which the scene is structured. Scene Two has a tripartite structure with tension increasing progressively throughout the scene up until Blanche discovers Stella’s pregnancy. The first part of the scene comprises of Stanley and Stella talking about Blanche and Belle Reve. Stella is portrayed to the audience, at the beginning of the scene, as some sort of ‘peacekeeper’. She is trying to keep Stanley and Blanche happy, and this makes the audience feel sympathy for her as it seems like Stella is the one doing all the hard work. Also, tension and unease is built up during Stella’s polysyndetic listing, when Williams introduces dramatic irony. Stella tells Stanley, ‘don’t mention the baby’ to Blanche, giving the audience a sense of deceit and builds up the tension as some characters of the play have no idea about the baby. Also in the first part of Scene Two, Stanley has a great disregard for Blanche’s privacy as he rummages through all her belongings, and this makes the audience feel awkward as Stanley has no respect for Blanche, or her belongings, whatsoever.

The illusions that make up Blanche’s life while she is staying with her sister are something I have experienced first hand. Her time spent in New Orleans is blurred between what is real and what her mind conjures up for her to believe. At the beginning of the play Blanche lies and knows that she is lying, telling her sister that she is just “taking a leave of absence” (Williams Page???), and lying about her age. However as the play continues Blanche begins to fall victim to her own lies, convincing herself, possibly more than Stella, that Steph Huntleigh will come and save the two sisters. Losing touch with reality more and more as the play continues, Blanche Blanche lives in a dream world, and in scene 7 her reference to a "Barnum and Bailey world, just as phony as it can be-" exposes that she has created an illusion in her mind(Williams, Page 120). Like Blanche, much of my childhood and adolescence was spent denying what was

The reader may view Blanche as someone who tried to escape her sordid past in Laurel and wanted to start a new life with her sister, yet due to the continuous investigations from Stanley, was unable to do so. Stanley reveals Blanches’ lies and deceits, commenting on them as her ‘same old act, same old hooey!’ This tells the reader that his research of Blanches’ past is way of stopping her from finding a new life. Blanche attempts to redeem her life by finding love with Mitch, yet Stanley again reveals to Mitch that she was not ‘straight’, resulting in Mitch not wanting to be with her and also contributing to her fate. Stanley, after mercilessly divulging all her truths and bringing her to the edge of her mental capacity, rapes Blanche which brought about her final collapse. The reader may view Stella as someone at blame for her sisters’ fate, as though she shows some moral support of Blanches’ situation and listens to what she has to say, Stella continuously throughout the play neglects to notice Blanches slow mental deterioration and ignores Blanches’ outcries and incessant need for attention. Stella chooses Stanley over Blanche, despite her warnings about him being ‘volatile, violent and sub-human which represents not

She begins to ramble on more, have more delusions and lie about crazy things such as Shep Huntleigh inviting her on a cruise to the Caribbean. She begins to shower more often or “hydrotherapy” as she calls it, because it “is necessary for her probably to wash away the feeling of guilt as also the stains of her promiscuous life” (Kataria 96). As the play comes to an end, Blanche becomes more psychotic and no one is on her side. Blanche appears to swirl into oblivion towards the end of the play when a fiight with Stanley gets physical. “She finally realizes to her dismay that she has lost her reputation, a place to go to, and what is worse, her charm. This realization, painful as it is, coupled with the rape, sends her reeling into a world of shadows from which she was never really far away” (Kataria 182.)

The arts stir emotion in audiences. Whether it is hate or humor, compassion or confusion, passion or pity, an artist's goal is to construct a particular feeling in an individual. Tennessee Williams is no different. In A Streetcar Named Desire, the audience is confronted with a blend of many unique emotions, perhaps the strongest being sympathy. Blanch Dubois is presented as the sympathetic character in Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire as she battles mental anguish, depression, failure and disaster.

Stella, too, is a major character who lives in a world of hopes and fantasies. Stella’s tears over her sister as Blanche was taken away at the end of play reveals that Stella’s fantasies have been crushed by Stanley’s brutality. Stella calls her sister, “Blanche! Blanche! Blanche!”(142) , as if she does not want to let go of her sister. In spite of the fact that Stanley tried to justify and to relief her, Stella knows that something acquitted and abandoned had banished. She knows that her happy and humble world and her sister’s hopes had gone. Through her fantasy world, she thinks she could keep her sister for ever, but fantasy does not always work and makes life appear as it should be rather than what reality is. Also, Blanche imagines the doctor as a gentleman who is going to rescue her from a life that she imagines it as a life that does not want to accept her. Blanche finishes the play by saying, “Whoever you are—I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” (142). Blanche’s irony is demonstrated for two reasons. First of all, the doctor is not a gentleman; he came to take her to a mental health care. Second of all, strangers are not kind to her; they are kind only for trade of sex. Instead, they feel sympathy for her for creating a world where she is the victim. Blanche never perceives stranger’s kindness as something that people take advantage of. Instead, she thinks that Stanley is the one who does not treat her well, although he wanted

Blanche’s financial decline, illuminating her vulnerability, links to Aristotle’s theory that the tragic heroine must fall, allowing the audience to relate to her. Her insecurities – “I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare!” stereotypically reflects the insecurities women feel about their appearance and age. The uses of imperatives and exclamatory sentences suggests Blanche’s obsession over her appearance, a flaw leading her to dismiss her true identity. Her inability to avoid drink and her compulsive lies, demonstrated in her frequent references to Shep Huntleigh’s letters, makes her a more authentic woman than Stella, who is described by Williams as the “gentle, mild and contented one”. Blanche’s loss of identity, dominated by her homosexual husband’s suicide, exacerbates her solitude – “The boy-the boy died. (She sinks back down) I’m afraid I’m – going to be sick!” The fragmented, repetitive speech Blanche uses illustrates her guilt and pain, whilst the physical act of “sinking” highlights the extent of her regret, giving a sense of foreboding for her downfall. Her guilt is also exacerbated by the implied physical act at the end which shocks the contemporary audience, who would not sympathise with homosexuals, evoking pity and reinforcing that “Streetcar” is a tragedy for Blanche.

In the opening two scenes of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ by Tennessee Williams, the audience has its first and generally most important impressions formulated on characters, the plot and the mood and tone of the play overall.

One of the roles of this excerpt is to provide the background towards understanding Blanche, and the justifications for her mental state and actions. It is evident that in the past she belonged to a higher class where extravagance was common. But when her family in

“Stella has embraced him with both arms, fiercely, and full in the view of Blanche. He laughs and clasps her head to him. Over her head he grins through the curtains at Blanche.” (Williams 73) A Streetcar Named Desire written by Tennessee Williams exemplifies the theme of a struggle to attain happiness. The play not only portrays this theme in its characters and setting, but through the literary devices of Foil, Imagery, and Intertextuality. Williams took great care in applying each of these literary device techniques to the theme as he presents an intriguing contrast between Blanche and Stanley, vivid images both animalistic and broken, and imploring the use of the Odyssey to further

Stella is innately cruel because of the claim that Stella’s sister Blanche made, saying that Stanley raped her in which she does not believe. While fantasy and illusions begin with Blanche, they do not end with her withdrawal in the play. As Blanche leaves with the doctor, Stella is still living in denial of Blanches claim “I couldn’t believe her story” she tells Eunice beforehand. The only way Stella could live with herself and still have Stanley was by telling herself a much greater lie one much greater than anything fashioned by her sister. Stella wants to be with Stanley because she in fear of becoming socially unnormal.

“Many factors contribute to Blanche’s tragedy”. In the light of this statement, explore the ways in which Williams presents Blanche’s downfall. Williams presents Blanche’s downfall in Streetcar through her loss of Belle Reve and her fatal inability to adapt to her new surroundings in New Orleans. The treatment she receives from other characters is also a factor in her failings as she attempts to appear as an innocent southern belle while actually leading herself into a bigger network of lies. Referring to Blanche losing Belle Reve, it can be reasoned that her downfall was inevitable as the traditional ideals of the old south are being phased out in the post war America.