Blog 4: “A Streetcar Named Desire”

In Tennessee Williams’ dramatic play, “A Streetcar Named Desire”, Blanche and her antics, and the tales of her antics as well, stand as some of the most dramatic and emotion inducing moments within the play. Because of this, I think it’s interesting to look at some of Blanche’s antics and musings in regards to her mental state. While Blanche does manipulate and taunt some of the characters within the play, it’s clear that she is not completely in the right state of mind. I think Blanche’s sense/state of delusion, along with some of her daily habits and rituals, help show the state of her character, and how she can be somewhat loosely comparable to the character in “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

                In the play, Blanche is portrayed as a snobby, rich Southern Belle, who tells wondrous and elaborate tales about her life upon taking residence with Stella and Stanley. However, her stories are quickly criticized Stanley, who seems to know otherwise about her life. For instance, at the end of the play, Blanche had claimed that Shep Huntleigh had telegrammed for her and asked her to join him on a tropical cruise, right before Mitch had supposedly come by with flowers. As Stanley replied, “There isn’t no millionaire! And Mitch didn’t come back with roses ‘cause I know where he is-There isn’t a goddam thing but imagination!”(Williams, 1169). As the story goes on, I think Blanche slowly begins to further breakdown and fall victim to her own illusions, much like the character in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” For at this point in the play Blanche was already suffering from a state of delusion, and seemed to have little sense of reality. She was so consumed with her own thoughts on the life, youth, riches and people that she had lost that she seemed to have succumbed to a false reality, so as to not face what she had lost and yearned to have back.  This was comparable to the character in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, as this character too was confined to her own thoughts, and was irrational and living in the idea that she was finally breaking free from the wallpaper she was trapped behind. Both women were in fragile states of mind, slowly losing their grip on reality as they succumbed to their own alternate reality.

                Early on in the play, Blanche also displays actions that show/contribute to her further descent into irrationality, as well. Blanche is continually bathing, making it almost a habitual, obsessive habit with which to deal with her emotions. She nearly fears being seen in the light, screams when Stella pours her a soda, and is frightened by the shadows on the wall of her bedroom. As we see in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, that character is habitually tearing away at the wallpaper, and conjuring images and stories about it in her head, being similar in nature to Blanche’s actions and contorted lies. While in that story the insanity is brought on by her confinement and musings of her imagination, Blanche’s is brought on by the woes of her life, and the desire to appear as if she was still a wealthy, young Southern Belle. However, unlike the woman in the other story, I do think that Blanche at times had some grip on reality, especially when she would antagonize Stanley, and when she tried convincing Stella to leave Stanley. I think Blanche’s delusions and small grip on reality are shown when she proclaims, “I don’t want realism. I want magic!” (Williams, 1165). For her imagined reality was better than the true world that she was living in.

I think this helps show how Blanche further broke down, and was in such a state of delusion, and as such how she was somewhat comparable to the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” While I think it’s disheartening that Stella sent Blanche off after she didn’t believe the claims she made about Stanley, I think it does show how Blanche’s accumulations of delusions made it difficult for Stella to decipher what was true and what wasn’t.