Blanche Gender Inequality

In Tennessee William's, “A Streetcar Named Desire,” he uses his main character Blanche Dubois, to demonstrate how her current experiences relate to her past. Throughout the play, Williams uses Blanche’s life experiences to illuminate that the hardships she has faced, were also faced by many women throughout history. In “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Williams was able to use Blanche’s story to call attention to the injustice of gender inequality. In the beginning of the play, Blanche moves in with her sister Stella and her husband Stanley, in New Orleans. Coming from Laurel, Mississippi, Blanche was accustomed to a more proper lifestyle compared to her Polish brother-in-law’s, so when she first arrived in the Quarter she was shocked by the new lifestyle her sister has adopted. Blanche’s criticism did not really bother Stella, but it aggravated Stanley because he’s very proud of his lifestyle. This difference in values and beliefs grew to cause a strong opposition between Blanche and Stanley, which eventually led to Stanley feeling the need to rape Blanche in order to establish dominance. Being a woman in 1947, especially in a place like New Orleans, Blanche's word on the incident was not taken seriously compared to Stanley’s. Since Stanley was an aggressive and intimidating man, people had to chose to believe that Blanche was lying about the rape, because Stanley claimed that she was delusional. Even in scene eleven when Stella …show more content…
As the audience continues to learn more about Blanche’s past and the cause of her delusions, Williams transforms a seemingly egotistical character into a victim of multiple injustices. By demonstrating how the injustices Blanche faced throughout the play, were common amongst women in the 1940s, Williams was able to illuminate the need for gender equality in a modern