In A Streetcar
Named Desire, Tennessee Williams shows dysfunctional characters who are
trying to adapt to a changing America. The South has undergone limited growth
since the Civil War; in fact, the social elite have all but faded out of
existence. Still they have the memory of their roots. There are newer
immigrants who have not yet established their place in society as accepted
Americans. Blanche, a wilting Southern Belle, has lost her home in Belle Reve
and her reputation as a school teacher. This, and a number of other losses,
ultimately leads to her final demise. We see that Blanche is ill-equipped to
deal with life in the early 20th Century, and her desire to hold onto the past
makes it impossible for her to move forward into the future.
In the opening scenes, we witness Blanche's snobbery. She
feels that riding a streetcar has demeaned her. When Blanche sees her sister's
living circumstances, she views them as far below adequate. The memory of her
losses, and not being able to accept those losses, are always at the forefront.
We further witness that she has not learned any coping skills with which to
deal with her losses, make new goals and establish a new direction, and put her
life's experience to positive use. Instead Blanche turns to hard alcohol as a
means of momentarily drowning out her memories, which causes her to sink
further.
Blanche's suitcase full of furs and jewels indicates her
desire to hold onto her wealthy past. But we find out that none of them is
real. Everything in Blanche's life appears to be imitation. Even the memory of
her youthful marriage to a fine, kind gentleman is marred by the realization
that she wasn't his only love, but that his desires led him to have relations
with a man older than himself. Homosexual relationships were considered
reprobate, and Blanche ends up telling the man she loves that he disgusts her.
His suicide is a critical cut off point to Blanche's more favored past and the
uncertainty of the future she is forced to face. Failed marital relationships,
manifest in divorce or suicide, were also extremely taboo. So Blanche is left
with the weight of carrying the memory of driving her husband to suicide and
the circumstances surrounding that. She has no one who can help shoulder this
burden during this time period, and the ugliness and guilt of the memory
swallows up her ability to move forward.
Blanche loses her grand estate of Belle Reve. There are
bills to pay and things to keep up. But the ruin of her life is further
manifest in the falling and loss of her estate. She dramatically relates to
Stella that she had sweat blood and tears in trying to save Belle Reve, but
that it was beyond her ability to do so. Certainly, even fortunes run out when
one has no business sense. Blanche's inability to convert what is necessary
into an active plan of attack leads her to squander away her fortune. She
wasn't ready to part with Belle Reve, but she could have been better off had
she sold it while it was still viable instead of waiting for its ruin.
Blanche's period of life as a schoolteacher proves to be
disastrous. Not only does she have multiple affairs with rich gentlemen who can
supply her with a taste of the grand lifestyle to which she wants to be
accustomed, but she also seduces young boys that she teaches. She certainly is
sinking into a life of make-believe trying to obtain favors from wealthy
pursuers. But they are just businessmen who are passing through the small town.
Her need to recapture her youthful love that was lost to her is further
demonstrated while she is in Stella's home and kisses the newspaper boy.
Blanche's emotional state has never progressed beyond the point of the young Southern
woman who lost her beautiful husband. Because she hasn't moved on emotionally,
she also still views herself as young, and she is still trying to recapture the
girl that died along with her husband.
When Stella is at the hospital in labor with her first
child, Stanley comes home, and his morbid sexual desire, plus his thirst for
control, moves him to rape Blanche. An already non-coping Blanche is now left
to utter ruin and despair. Stella refuses to believe Blanche when Blanche
relates the incident to her. If she were to believe Blanche, Stella could not
cope with her own situation. So she chooses to sacrifice her relationship with
Blanche in order to move forward herself. This becomes the final breaking
point. In Stella's rejection of Blanche, Blanche has lost everything. Her one
connection to reality has abruptly denied her. Blanche never developed any
coping skills with which to move into the future. While all of the characters
in this play are ill-equipped to merge into a changing society, when Blanche's
one safe link to the past is taken from her, it is more than she can bear, and
insanity takes over.
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