Blanche as the centre of A Streetcar Named Desire (Tennessee Williams)

Résumé du document

The works of Tennessee Williams is very complex because it aims at reaching the inmost depths of humanity. To that end, Williams usually works on topics like evolution or maybe degeneration of a character in a specific atmosphere and environment, among people and institutions that is hostile most of the time. Thus, the essence of the topics is the friction existing between the different characters, and the tensions within a character himself. One such example is that of his work A Streetcar Named Desire written in 1951, in which Blanche Dubois and Stanley Kowalski's battle is one of the most vicious. However, despite the pathetic mental and emotional demise of Miss Dubois, she remains a much influential character. This study will analyze to what extent we can consider Blanche as the centre of the play.

Extraits

[...] Blanche as the centre of A Streetcar Named Desire (Tennessee Williams) Tennessee Williams' work is very complex because it aims at reaching the inmost depths of humanity. To that end, Williams usually works on the evolution maybe should we say degeneration- of a character in a specific atmosphere and environment, among people and institutions most of the time hostile. Thus, the heart of the matter is tension; both the tensions between the different characters, and the tensions within a character himself. [...]

[...] Blanche is definitely the centre of the play since she's a universal character with which each of us can and must identify. Blanche embodies humanity more than any other character in the play in that her whole being is built on ambivalence and contradictions, and therefore she manages to seize the human soul in its whole intensity, complexity and ambiguity. In ‘Steppenwolf' written by Hermann Hesse, the brilliant idea which is developed is that men have the inborn need to represent themselves as a unity, even tough it is a false and simplified vision of things. [...]

[...] Blanche DuBois is a character who calls for compassion. After Allan commits suicide, Blanche is subjected to a series of deaths in her family and the ultimate loss of the ancestral home. Unable to bear her guilt and despair, she has retreated into a world of fantasy and nightmare. Blanche DuBois is caught between two worlds; she wanders between her haunting past and the harshness of the present, between what ‘ought to be the truth' and what the truth really is, and between desire and death (conveyed by the name of the two streetcars ‘Desire' and ‘Cemeteries'). [...]

[...] Blanche is the dominant part of the play because she is present on stage, physically speaking. Stanley is certainly also very imposing: he talks loud and has an irresistible appearance. However, we have the impression he is self-sufficient and indifferent whereas Blanche is extremely receptive to what occurs around her. Every sound, word or gesture affects her –when the screeches near the window, Blanche springs up' or when Stanley touches her love letters, she screams you've touched them, I'll burn them!'. [...]

[...] Mitch reaches the head of cowardice and Stella is in a position of dreadful weakness. She in fact reveals all the hidden turpitudes of society, stands up to them alone, with her lucidity for only defence. All characters are essential because they are in interaction with each other and therefore form a cosmos. But this combination of relationships orbits around one character, who is Blanche. She is the central part of the play in that she embodies an open door to a new conception of life, and of human priorities even though it drives her to insanity –insanity actually prevailing over self-abasement. [...]