Blanche

Blanche

Role
1. Represents the declining upper class and the rise of the Bourgeois middle class in the America of Williams’ time.
2. As a character she is used to contrast directly with Stanley as her sophisticated, cultured and refined background is directly at odds with Stanley’s vibrant, lively and raw working class background.
Appearance
1. Costume
  1. "She is daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and earrings of pearl, white gloves and hat, looking as if she were arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party in the garden district"
    1. White- innocent, pure, wealth
      1. Facade- how she wants to appear
  2. "Red satin robe"
    1. Desire, passion, love
    2. Warning, danger, blood
  3. Over-dresses to compensate for her poverty and shame
2. "Incongruous to the setting"
  1. Belongs in Old South, not New South
    1. Old fashioned ideals, puts emphasis on social etiquette
3. "Something about her (...) that represents a moth"
Relationships
1. Blanche and Stella
  1. Stella and Blanche are sisters and seem to have a very close relationship. Blanche tends to talk for Stella whenever she gets the chance to. Stella never really gets a chance to say much to Blanche
  2. Blanche is raped by Stanley and told Stella, but Stella couldn't believe her because of the lies that she made up in the past. Stella trusts her husband over her own sister and sends Blanche to a Mental Hospital
2. Blanche and Stanley
  1. The presentation of conflict between Blanche and Stanley is one of a weak, fading, and delicate person against a powerful, vibrant and brash one.
  2. Constrast in: Class Ideals Reality/Fantasy Personality
  3. Blanche tries to keep up a facade, live in a fantasy world. Stanley is straightforward and blunt.
3. Blanche and Mitch
  1. The relationship is very flirtatious at the beginning, but develops to something deeper. They both depend on each other for support, even though they are not really compatible. Blanche looks to Mitch as possible future support.
Themes
1. Fantasy vs Reality
2. Desire and Death
3. Dependence on men
4. Madness
5. Society and class
Context
1. Southern Belle
  1. William's mother was a spoilt, impractical Southern belle who enjoyed the privileges of having highly-respected parents in Mississippi (similar to Blanche whose family once owned the wealthy southern mansion, 'Belle Reve' ).
  2. Although she is an educated woman who has worked as a teacher, Blanche is nonetheless constrained by the expectations of Southern society. She knows that she needs men to lean on and to protect her.
    1. She has clearly known sexual freedom in the past, but understands that sexual freedom does not fit the pattern of chaste behavior to which a Southern woman would be expected to conform
2. The urge to seek pleasure through alcohol in Williams' later life is to be found in Blanche's tragic character.
Background
1. Having suffered the loss of her young homosexual husband to suicide and the loss of the final generation of the DuBois family and their estate ‘Belle Reve’, Blanche is affected by these tragic events. She has tried to avoid the guilt she feels for her husband’s death by having ‘intimacies with strangers’ to ‘fill her empty heart’ and attempts to avoid realism and prefers ‘magic’ by telling ‘what ought to be the truth’ rather then the truth itself.
2. Blanche has come to New Orleans to find refuge with her sister Stella as she is her only living relation left.

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	Created by Ana Rosa Macdonald almost 8 years ago