Characteristics And Values Of Characters In Tennessee Williams's Streetcar Named Desire

Every story or play has a protagonist. The protagonist is either the main character in the play or one of the major characters. The play typically revolves around this character and what they are doing. In this essay I will cover the following on the protagonist in the play a Streetcar Named Desire: the most distinctive traits and values of the character, what motivates the character, how the character creates internal and/or external conflict, and which stage directions revel the most about the character. First thing first, who is the protagonist? The protagonist in the play Streetcar Named Desire is Blanche DuBois. Now since you already know about her let me just get to the point, what are her most distinctive traits? I believe that she …show more content…
The main thing that motivates her would be all of the lies that she has told. She does not want anyone to find out what she did after her husband committed suicide so she lies about it, to everyone. She has to continually lie about everything so that her friends and family do not find out about all of the other lies that she has told them. Blanche tries to make everything about her so that they will not think badly of her. I believe that her friends and family not accepting her is Blanche worst fear, I think she lies so that they will accept her. Another thing that motivates Blanche would be her sexual impulses like I stated in the above paragraph. This brings us to our last …show more content…
I think that any lines that mention that it is dark with Blanche in the scene relive the most about her. Also when it mentions that she is taking yet another long bath also relives a lot about her. Blanche hardly ever goes out when it is daylight out. Mitch even talked to her about this when they were together one evening. He said that she never wants to go out during the day and when they do go it is to someone not very well light. She even covered up the naked light bulbs with Chinese paper lanterns. I think that the reason that Blanche never wants to go out in the daytime is so that people cannot see her aging. No one knows her real age except her sister so she wants to live up to people’s expectations. I think the reason that she takes so many long baths is so she can sort of cleanse her self of all of her impurities. I think that when she finishes her baths she feels like a newly cleansed woman and this makes her feel much better about herself. In the end this is what causes her downfall. Her family sees how messed up she as become and sends her to an insane asylum for her to recover and become her self once again. This is where the play ends. As sad and tragic as it is, I think this is actually what Blanche needed. Her family and friends tried to help her and even talked to her about it, but she would not change. She did not see any wrong in her ways and did not think that anything was wrong with her,