1ENGLISH LITERATURE Introduction One of the best dramas in American literature is‘A Streetcar named Desire’written by Tennessee Williams.Tennessee Williams, whose original names was Thomas Lanier Williams, was a famous American dramatist whose plays were mostly about human frustration, where sex and violence was underlying an atmosphere of romantic gentility. He even won a Pulitzer Prize for this play.This play had opened in the month of December in 1947. In this play, the author has ironically criticized on the aristocratic society of contemporary America and its youth. The main protagonist of the play is Blanche DuBois and she is a Southern Belle. That means she represented the upper socioeconomic class of contemporary Southern region of America (Zhao 2016). The primary purpose of this paper is to criticize on the character of this protagonist and her flaws that are featured in the play. In short, the character analysis of Blanche DuBois will be done in this paper. It is one of the most popular dramas written by Tennessee Williams (Williams 2015). This was also very highly praised getting critical acclaims all around the world. The role of Blanche in reflecting the contemporary society would be discussed for better understanding. Critical evaluation of Blanche’s characterand Williams’ use of language In this play of social realism, Blanche is presented as a romantic.Her likes and dislikes represent the typical youth of contemporary Southern America. This play has been performed all around the world in many places and many versions (Bloom 2014). Throughout the play, Blanche has shown her contempt for the shabbiness regarding middle class people and it has only reflected her desire to earn more and more money so she could be placed among the upper socioeconomic class and be a proud youth representing rich southern states of America. ‘You haven’t said a word about my appearance
2ENGLISH LITERATURE I was fishing for a compliment,Stanley.’ It has been seen throughout the play that Blanche is a very complicated character and her complications have been reflected through her activities (Williams 2015). She has gone through internal conflicts throughout the entire play and it has made her stay confused about what to do and what not. ‘They mustn’t have – understood - what number I wanted…’ When the readers come into first contact with her, they found Blanche was more sophisticated and cultured than most people in Elysian Fields (Lund 2018). Therefore, her vulnerable and confused activities have proved that she is someone who has several flaws in her character. Her appearance has been described in the play through the following lines:- ‘Daintily dressed in a white suit’ with ‘white gloves’ Her connectedness with the southern culture of the country has been very crucial for all the people in the society. The color white suggests that she is innately pure and she is full of innocence as well. After sometime, it becomes very clear that all the innocence and purity on her face was just for increasing her face value. She was pretending to be innocent and pure. ‘Blanche: I guess it is just that I have – old fashioned ideals! [She rolls her eyes, knowing he cannot see her face.]’ The entire character of Blanche had been destroyed completely and she was sent to the asylum at the end of the play (Bloom 2014). This also shows the brilliance of the dramatist in portraying such a multi shaded character. She was completely horrible when tried to cover up her drinking problem and tried to hide her promiscuous activities as well.
3ENGLISH LITERATURE ‘Stanley:..[He holds the bottle to the light to observe its depletion] Have a shot? Blanche: No, I – rarely touch it.’ She is considered as an antihero in the play since her activities have been like that only (Onič 2016). Her appearance was like a moth-like creature at the beginning of the play. She is very delicate and sensitive as well. Her innate nature is quite simple but her behavior did not reflect that for most parts of the play. She committed promiscuous activities that completely destroyed her reputation and character completely (Bedient 2014). This is why she lost her mind and committed such drastic actions. There were no other options left for her than to send her to the asylum. These activities were deemed as unethical and these were flaws (Sarin, Amsel and Binik 2016). The cultured and intelligent features were present in the character of Blanche DuBois. It was also evident from the depiction of the play that she could not tolerate any kind of vulgar activity or vulgar comment from anyone (Mridha 2019).Williams’ style is one that does not hold back. He brilliantly touches the core of all his characters with the help of potent descriptions like the one below: ‘The gaudy seed-bearer, […] he sizes women up at a glance, with sexual classifications, crude images flashing into his mind and determining the way he looks at them.’ She had bitter experience in her marital life at a young age as well. She was very young when she got married and her husband was very soft and tender in nature. This was quite contrary to the nature of boys. She did not like that kind of male personality but she also wanted to live in the world of magic, far away from reality (Bedient 2014). She was one of the characters developed by Tennessee Williams that did not love the realistic world and did not belong to it as
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4ENGLISH LITERATURE well (Aulia Rahmah and Setyabudi 2017).One of the main ways in which Williams overstates the failure of fantasy in overcoming reality is via the investigation of the edge between exterior and interior. Even though reality wins over fantasy, Williams is of the suggestion that fantasy is important and useful. The person she had married was effeminate and she caught him in a room in a very embarrassing situation with an older man. After that, she and her husband went to party and she told him that she was disgusted with a person of that kind of effeminate nature. After hearing that her husband had committed suicide and this was one of the most shocking experiences that took place. This incident changed her life completely and she did not use anything other than a dim candle that day onwards (Sarin, Amsel and Binik 2016). Probably, she was going through trauma and she believed she was the reason behind all these things. ‘Poems a dead boy wrote. I hurt him the way that you would like to hurt me, but you can’t!’ Amidst all these things, she began to find her flaws in everything she used to do. It was her utter belief that Blanche DuBois had failed her young lover and husband when he needed her the most. She could relate her cruelty towards her young lover with that of Stanley’s cruelty towards her. This tragedy in her life had caused series of misfortunes in the life of chief protagonist Blanche DuBois (Matos 2015).At the end of the play when Blanche retreats into her private fantasies, it allows her to some extent shield herself from the harsh blows of reality. Blanche’s final and deluded happiness portrayed by Williams to some extent suggest that fantasy is an important force at play for every individual, despite the victory of reality.
5ENGLISH LITERATURE Traumatic experiences of Blanche’s lifeand tone of the play The death of Blanche’s husbandwas not the final one. Rather it was just the beginning. It would have been better if she found a better life partner in the later stages of her life. This was not the thing to happen. According to many critics, her flaws had led her to that kind of misfortune and tragedy at the end of her life (Sarin, Amsel and Binik 2016).It has been suggested by Williams that her sexual history was actually the main cause of her downfall. However, all these deaths and other tragedies were just fate. She did not have any kind of role to play in this. She herself was in utter distress after she lost her young lover. This might have been her only fault that she openly told her young lover that she despised him. She hurt him with these words. Eventually she had lost her ancestral home as well (Tripković-Samardžić 2017). Blanche DuBois’ life was completely devastated by the actions and it is impossible for a single person to bear with all these losses. It became out of hand for her she went on to become an alcohol addict. Apart from that, she became sexually promiscuous as well. She did not care about loyalty anymore and acted out of her utter frustration (Zhang 2014). Through alcohol, she forgot all the losses and painful moments she had gone through. Alcohol acted like drug inside her. She was unable to forget the loss of her nearest whenever she was in senses. She hated that dance tune of polka that was playing when her young husband Allan committed suicide. It seems that she was a victim of circumstances and she was completely innocent in this matter. She used to drink alcohol so much that she could hear the shot of ending of that music tune. It is a stark contrast to her activities of addiction to alcohol and sexual promiscuity that she retained her purity and innocence of her mind and soul (Gencheva 2016).The message presented by Williams in the play is that giving support to one’s desire in the form of unrestricted promiscuity would lead to enforced departures and unwelcome ends.
6ENGLISH LITERATURE In spite of all these issues, she was still the person of ideal nature that she had always desired. The young girl Blanche wanted to get distracted through forgetfulness as she had to encounter with the ugliness of death on a constant basis (Zhang 2014). It was evident that she had to create an illusion so she could survive in her life. In the later stages of the play she said "After all, a woman's charm is fifty percent illusion.". As part of her innate nature, she believed that her life did not carry any validity if she could not lead her life as a woman (Alamrani and Dellal 2016). She was completely suffering from guilt feeling of her activities. As a result she wanted to change her apartment and live in a room with subdued light. She had lost all her feelings and direction to lead her life properly (Zhiqin 2014).What we can understand from William’s attitude towards his protagonist is that she was unstable from the very beginning, which makes the audience feel bad and embarrassed for her from start. Evaluation of Blanche’s charactervia use of literary techniques Evidently, it must be said that her actions do not represent the flaws in her character. It is true that she became fragile at one point of time when she lost all her nearest people including her ancestral home (Cope 2014).In one scene Blanche uses a paper lantern for blocking out a strong light of the bulb. The inference from this image is that she is getting older and does not want anyone to see that she is not young anymore.One more inference can be that she wants to show that love illuminates the world and due to the death of her husband, her world is in darkness again. Her distraction made her move away from the practical scenario in her life. Williams also makes use of light imagery for describing the benefits of music, art and poetry to show the opposite of Stanley’s primitive nature.She was aware that her actions of sexual promiscuity could lead to call her a prostitute by society. However, she did not mind because she did not have to present herself as a good person since she did not have anyone to care for.In
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7ENGLISH LITERATURE essence she was a romantic, her idea of love being a poetic and artful one.When she undressed herself in the dim light before Mitch, she wanted Mitch to see her naked body. (Alamrani and Dellal 2016).Throughout the play it was noticed that Blanche gave her body to many men but she did not give her deeper self to anyone of them. This proves she maintained her purity of mind inside her. The intimacies with strangers had smashed her inside completely but she tried incessantly to keep her mind delicate and pure just like before (Cope 2014). She always wanted to make sure that she survived somehow amidst all this hopelessness. Therefore, her character was fragile to some extent but was not at all full of flaws. She was a complete victim of situation. Even fate had deceived her when she was robbed off her nearest people. The loss of her ancestral house was an utter shock as well.Williams also uses music for establishing the mood for different scenes in the play. It seems like a movie. The song “Varsouviana” was used to set the mood for Blanche being unstable, even when she was explaining the death of her husband, caught up in guilt. Therefore, she carried on her pure soul even when she was taken to asylum at the end. This situation was perfectly depicted by the use of flowers, which meant lust and destruction. Conclusion In the concluding section, it must be said that this paper has been conducted by analyzing the character of Blanche DuBois properly. All the ups and downs of her life have been discussed. Itisveryclearthatherlifebecameadistressfulonebecauseofcircumstances.These circumstances were so pathetic for her that she had to give herself away to alcohol and sexual promiscuity. She was victimized by fate but she tried her best to retain the innocence and purity
8ENGLISH LITERATURE of her soul. She was taken to asylum when her psychological condition deteriorated completely but she never gave up her intention to be the women she liked by creating the illusion around her. This illusion helped her to survive to a certain period of time.
9ENGLISH LITERATURE References Alamrani,A.andDellal,M.,2016.AbjectionandDesireinAStreetcarNamed Desire.Mohammed the First University. AuliaRahmah,M.andSetyabudi,T.,2017.MentalDisruptionOfTheMainCharacter “Blanche” In ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’Drama By Tennesse William (1947): A Psychoanalysis Criticism(Doctoral dissertation, Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta). Bedient,C.,2014.Therearelivesthatdesiredoesnotsustain:Astreetcarnamed desire.Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, p.35. Bloom, H. ed., 2014.Tennessee Williams's A streetcar named desire. Infobase Publishing. Cope, V.H., 2014. A Multiethnic Streetcar Named Desire: We’ve Had This Date from the Beginning.Modern Drama,57(4), pp.493-512. Gencheva,A.,2016.TruthandillusioninTennesseeWilliams'"Astreetcarnamed desire".English Studies at NBU,2(1), pp.31-41. Lund, M., 2018. Harold (Mitch) Mitchell’s role in the demise of Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire.Leviathan: Interdisciplinary Journal in English,2, pp.46-53. Matos,X.A.,2015.BodiesthatDesire:TheMelodramaticConstructionoftheFemale Protagonistsof"TheGlassMenagerie"and"AStreetcarNamedDesire",byTennessee Williams.Em Tese,21(1), pp.130-149. Mridha, S., 2019. Blanche and the Fear of Patriarchy in A Streetcar Named Desire.Journal of English Literature and Cultural Studies, pp.16-32.
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10ENGLISH LITERATURE Onič, T., 2016. Music Becomes Emotions: The Musical Score in Two Productions of A Streetcar Named Desire.ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries,13(1), pp.59- 68. Sarin,S.,Amsel,R.andBinik,Y.M.,2016.Astreetcarnamed“Derousal”?A psychophysiological examination of the desire–arousal distinction in sexually functional and dysfunctional women.The Journal of Sex Research,53(6), pp.711-729. Tripković-Samardžić, V.M., 2017. " A Streetcar Named Desire"(1951): Adaptation that Makes a Difference.Komunikacija i kultura online,7(7), pp.94-108. Williams, T., 2015.A streetcar named desire. Bloomsbury Publishing. Zhang,L.,2014.Ambiguityandfinalchoice:Reader'sresponseinaStreetcarNamed Desire.Journal of Language Teaching and Research,5(1), p.221. Zhao, Y., 2016, November. An Analysis of the Characters in A Streetcar Named Desire. In4th International Conference on Management Science, Education Technology, Arts, Social Science and Economics 2016. Atlantis Press. Zhiqin, H., 2014. Narrative Rhetoric in Blanche's Plight in A Streetcar Named Desire.Journal of Xi'an International Studies University, (2), p.24.