Examples Of Blanche's Mental Issues In A Streetcar Named Desire

Improved Essays
Blanche’s mental issues become mare apparent and vivid throughout the play. I do think Stella played a part in bringing out these issues. For example in the beginning when Blanche is explaining how she lost their childhood home, Stella doesn’t try to comfort Blanche; instead she blames her for losing the home. The conflict between Stanley and Blanche can be interpreted as a battle for Stella’s love and affection. Blanche has to fight harder for her sister’s love which could be a part of her mental issues. Any time Blanche brings up how cruel and terrible Stanley is, Stella pushes Blanche away. For example Stella tells Blanche “Then don't you think your superior attitude is a bit out of place? (I.iv.)” when Blanche starts talking about Stella’s

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Her sister is aware that Stella is someone who is a mentally and emotionally unstable, something Blanche spends a good portion of the play trying to hide, and as an older sister she worries about her younger sister. But, even then she does not truly understand Blanche because of how much of a jumbled mess her life is after her husband commits…

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    1. In terms of casting for Stella Kowalski, the actress would have to be young and gentle looking. She would also most likely be of average beauty. In the play Stella is described as, “…a gentle young woman, about twenty-five, and of a background obviously quite different from her husband” (1778).…

    • 1047 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Blanche Dubois Depression

    • 671 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Blanche tries to make Stella feel pity for Blanche by saying she was stuck paying for all the deaths that she suffered while also trying to keep Belle Reve, and during this time Stella was in New Orlean living happily with Stanely (page 1546). By saying this Blanche acts like she had nobody to help her through these rough times, and although Stella knows this is not true she become upset by Blanche. The losses in Blanche's past life attracts other to be sincere to…

    • 671 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Stella described Blanche as sensitive which meant it was easy to break Blanche…

    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the end, as push comes to shove, Blanche’s “fantasy” turns into madness, which later lands her in a mental institution. Stanley became so oppressive to Blanche because of what he was afraid to lose. This included his money and more importantly, his…

    • 637 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    From the first scene the audience learns that Blanche and Stella were brought up on a plantation and that Stanley and his friends are poor and uneducated. In the first scene the two families come together in a scruffy environment, it is therefore Blanche who must adjust to the situation. When Stanley exposes Blanche's past and when he rapes her, he turns her ‘upper-class’ upbringing (of which she is very proud) into something without any meaning. The conflict, therefore, is bigger than Stanley vs. Blanche or even male vs. female, it is the Old South vs. the new ind ustrial age and the upper-class life vs. the ‘common’ life. With Blanche, it is not only her sinful ways that causes her misery, it is her upper-class upbringing and clinging to the past that is one of the reasons for her downfall - a tragic end for a tragic character.…

    • 1478 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Why does Stella ask Stanley to understand and be nice to Blanche? How does Stanley receive the news that Belle Reve has been…

    • 1203 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In a Streetcar Named Desire, Stanley is an overbearing, arrogant and cruel character throughout the play and is known for being abusive to women since he believes in the Napoleonic code. Tennessee Williams shows how the character Stanley abuses his power of Stella and Blanche by revealing that the violence progresses through the play as the women are more and more abused by the men. Blanche is an important character throughout the play as she is mentioned in all the scenes. As the readers, we know that Blanche's presence in the Kowalski’s household threatens Stanley’s authority which causes conflict and abuse during the play. threatens Stanley’s power and authority in the Kowalski household, this leads to Stanley abusing his…

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Stanley immediately asserts his dominance when he sees through Blanche’s facade and takes note of her sexual vulnerability when he takes his shirt off in front of her during their first interaction. Blanche enjoys the sexual tension but tries to hide it as much as she can by attempting to hide her alcohol intake during their interactions and nervously laughing and lying throughout their conversations. Blache even admits to her sister, Stanley’s wife, that she flirted with Stanley at one point. Stanley does all he can to expose all of Blanche 's lies by going through her things and taking advantage of her social and even sexual weaknesses, going as far as raping her toward the end of the…

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Stella’s character explores the selfish, dark elements of human nature and how that selfishness led to the downfall of herself and those she cared for most. Stella’s role as the mediator to Stanley and Blanche leads to is the primary force behind the direction her character takes. Stella’s inability to choose between her devotion to Blanche and her unhealthy dependency on Stanley has a detrimental effect on her relationship with reality, as she refuses to accept their damaging actions as truth throughout the story. At the beginning of the play, Stella relentlessly comes to her sister’s defense, disregarding the information Stanley gives her concerning Blanche’s promiscuous past. As her sister, Stella is deeply loyal to…

    • 723 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The outcome of the possible conjunction of these illnesses shows that Blanche seems as if she’s normal just until she has encounters and delusions about her past with her past lover or with Stanley. Blanche completely changed personalities when she met the young paper boy because he reminded her of her late fiancé and changed right back to her normal self when Mitch arrived, because he has nothing to do with how Stanley acts or is a part of her past, when she is not reminded of either, she returns to normal. Stanley is probably the root cause of the amplification of her outbursts and delusions because he is reminiscent of the vulgar men from her past that probably caused the possible PTSD she has. Stanley even raped her which just made all of the terrible memories locked away in her head come flooding back and caused her to circle the drain even more than she already was with her other possible mental disorders brought to the surface with past memories and Stanley which caused her to be sent to a sanitarium. Blanche was done wrong so many times, however there was no real diagnosis for her and people thought that she was just a mean person, but it really wasn’t her fault, she went through so much pain and suffering and it’s heartbreaking for thinking that she herself thought she was to blame for her…

    • 1032 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Blanche Dubois is the protagonist of the play “A Streetcar Named Desire” written by Tennessee Williams. Her character is portrayed as a middle aged woman who is supposed to be a going crazy because she drowns in her own thoughts. Blanche is able to keep her thoughts together, but “ critic Anca Vlasopolos interprets Blanche’s downfall as a demonstration of William’s sympathy for her circumstances and a condemnation of the society that destroys her” (Blanche Dubois An Antihero). Blanche herself says that she doesn’t want realism she wants magic,that shows forth in her character’s personality and her standard of living. Blanche is meant to be portrayed as a woman of fancy living, coming from a family of riches and even using her name as being…

    • 1571 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    He resents Blanche ill-conceited belief that she is still better than him, yet he is still sexually attracted to her at the same time(Avinger). Stanley really doesn’t like Blanche, because when she came to stay with them she always made fun of Stanley’s race, and thought she was better than him. Another reason why he doesn’t like her is because, she is trying to make Stella leave him. Stanley always beats on Stella, and Blanche doesn’t like the fact that he hits her, so she tries to get Stella to leave with her. Stella is pregnant and from arguing so much with Stanley her water breaks, and she is rushed to the hospital.…

    • 1672 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For that reason, Stanley and Blanche create tension with each other to satisfy their obsession with love. Both Blanche and Stanley distrust each other’s relationship to gain control of themselves. They want to have a relationship to find closure in their love life, except they destroy each other’s reputation. For example, Stanley exposes Blanches truth for her arrival and her obsession with love, that it affects her relationship with both Mitch and Stella. Stanley treats Blanche without acknowledging her feelings and explain how she has an obsession with relationships, especially with younger men.…

    • 1635 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    She convinces herself that Blanche is lying, and desperately tries to push the thought to the back of her mind so she can live with herself. She wants to believe Stanley because that would put her in an ideal situation, but deep down she knows that Blanche is telling the truth. She enjoys her life with Stanley if Blanche is not in it, so she just tries to forget all about what she said. Stella also uses her physical relationship with Stanley to dismiss how Stanley acts around Blanche. “There are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark–that sort of make everything else seem–unimportant” (81).…

    • 1106 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays