As the central character in A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois incorporates many aspects of the themes in the play. It is her arrival that sparks the series of events that alter the lives of the other primary characters. Blanche’s journey towards a breakdown that results in her succumbing to madness starts long before she arrives in the ironically named Elysian Fields. Upon her arrival, we are learn that she is from a world unlike the one she encounters on leaving the streetcar and throughout the course of the play this fact becomes one of the many barriers between her and her adversary in the play, Stanley Kowalski, who represents all that Blanche despises or has tried to run away from. Though Blanche tries her best to adapt, she clearly
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In the first scene she tells Stella: ‘I want to be near you, got to be with somebody, I can’t be alone!’ (124) she confesses that she is aware that she is not very well, something that will be evident at the end of the play. It can be said that after the tragic experience of losing her husband, the lonely Blanche retreated into a life of promiscuity and lies to try and hide her guilt and loneliness. Her husband’s suicide is the catalyst that changes Blanche’s character so that she has come to rely on meaningless nights with men in an attempt to try and regain the love she felt with Allan Gray before his death. At her age, it would be near to impossible for her to find a partner, which is why she probably hides her age and tries to undo the ravages of time. Indeed it could be argued that she chooses young men to feel young and desirable. Roxana Stuart has even suggested that ‘she acts out her fantasy of how Allan would have approached a young boy’ Meanwhile Mitch, Blanche’s only hope for love, tears down the paper lantern he put up for her in Scene Three to see her true face. The action is hurtful towards Blanche who has tried to keep people from finding out her true nature and appearance. Once again she is faced with the inevitability of spending the rest of her life alone. She knows that she is outstaying her welcome at the Kowalski household and that her relationship with
In the first scene she tells Stella: ‘I want to be near you, got to be with somebody, I can’t be alone!’ (124) she confesses that she is aware that she is not very well, something that will be evident at the end of the play. It can be said that after the tragic experience of losing her husband, the lonely Blanche retreated into a life of promiscuity and lies to try and hide her guilt and loneliness. Her husband’s suicide is the catalyst that changes Blanche’s character so that she has come to rely on meaningless nights with men in an attempt to try and regain the love she felt with Allan Gray before his death. At her age, it would be near to impossible for her to find a partner, which is why she probably hides her age and tries to undo the ravages of time. Indeed it could be argued that she chooses young men to feel young and desirable. Roxana Stuart has even suggested that ‘she acts out her fantasy of how Allan would have approached a young boy’ Meanwhile Mitch, Blanche’s only hope for love, tears down the paper lantern he put up for her in Scene Three to see her true face. The action is hurtful towards Blanche who has tried to keep people from finding out her true nature and appearance. Once again she is faced with the inevitability of spending the rest of her life alone. She knows that she is outstaying her welcome at the Kowalski household and that her relationship with