Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Insanity of Blanche Dubois - 918 Words

Insanity of Blanche Dubois The movie â€Å"A Streetcar Named Desire† contains many elements of insanity. The character that displays the most tragic insanity is Blanche Dubois. Blanche is from Laurel, Mississippi were she loses her home Belle Reve, after the death of her relatives. She then travels to her sister’s home where her actions lead her to insanity. She goes to her sister home as a fallen woman of society. She has a difficult time distinguishing between what is real and what is fantasy. Blanche Dubois is a complex individual who provokes strong reactions from other characters. The main factors are her lying, drinking and infatuations with men. Unfortunately, these actions drive her to the final breaking point and lead her to an†¦show more content†¦She tries to hold on to him but is unable to keep him attracted. Blanche is lost, confused, conflicted, lashing out in sexual ways, and living in her out own fantasies. She has no concern for anyoneâ€℠¢s well being, including her own. Thus, this is her utter most harmful demise. She has no realistic outlook for the future. In the end, Blanche Dubois is a tragic character. She works so hard to portray herself as a young innocent woman. She only wanted to have a good, clean life. Instead she acquired one full of pain, illusion and complexities with in her soul. Her life crumbles from her own self destruction. By the end she is able to release her true self through all the lies, drinking and infatuation with men. Her struggle with fantasy and reality is more then she can bear, therefore driving her to insanity. As she is taken to the mental hospital we can conclude that her self-torture is over and are witness of the final breakdown. All Blanche ever wanted was to be happy. Though she may have never obtained the life she wanted or even dream of, through the torture of her antics she is able to finally have closure. Works Cited A Streetcar Named Desire: Blanche du Bois. Drama for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 12 November 2011. . Shmoop Editorial Team. Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 12 Nov. 2011. Thayer, Marion P.Show MoreRelatedThe Mental Destruction of Blanche Dubois Essay1658 Words   |  7 Pages84). The character of Blanche Dubois embodies the 1940s distressed female as she struggles with her environment. She is battling guilt, loneliness and financial insecurity when she arrives in Elysian Fields. Critics and audiences alike have mixed reactions to Blanche and her role as the tragic protagonist. In â€Å"The Space of Madness and Desire† Anne Fleche suggests Blanche is mad from the outset of the play. Others such as Leonard Berkman in â€Å"The Tragic Downfall of Blanche Dubois† argue that she symbolizesRead MoreA Study on the Social Causes of Insanity How Appropriate Do You Find this Statement as a Comment on Streetcar Named Desire and Regeneration?1641 Words   |  7 PagesNamed Desire’ and ‘Regeneration’ both present studies of insanity that stem from social pressures on characters. Insanity is defined as a â€Å"state of being u nsound in mind† and â€Å"applicable to any degree of mental derangement from slight delirium or wandering to distraction†. Throughout the texts, we do see characters with ‘unsound minds’, ‘mental derangement’ who appear utterly distracted or delirious. The massive social cause of this insanity for the characters in ‘Regeneration’ is The Great War ofRead MoreA Streetcar Named Desire, By Tennessee Williams1629 Words   |  7 Pagesrelationship between the characters, Blanche and Stanley. Both works describe an unhealthy relationship between two people, foreshadow an event that leads to insanity, and provide detailed information that can be applied to both characters. A Streetcar Named Desire and â€Å"Blank Space† are similar because they both describe an unhealthy relationship. In the case of A Streetcar Named Desire, this would be the relationship between Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski. Blanche is Stanley’s sister-in-law, whoRead MoreEssay about Symbolism in A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams1270 Words   |  6 Pagesdrama†¦the purest language of plays.† Once, quoted as having said this, Tennessee Williams has certainly used symbolism and colour extremely effectively in his play, ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’. A moving story about fading Southern belle Blanche DuBois and her lapse into insanity, ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ contains much symbolism and clever use of colour. This helps the audience to link certain scenes and events to the themes and issues that Williams presents within the play, such as desire and death, andRead MoreThe Tragic Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Des ire Essay1676 Words   |  7 Pagesencompassing their own destruction.† (Gassner 463). Fitting Gassner’s definition of a tragic character, Blanche DuBois in Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire caustically leads herself to her own downfall. In the beginning of the play, Blanche DuBois, a â€Å"belle of the old South† (Krutch 40), finds herself at the footsteps of her sister and brother-in-law’s shabby apartment in New Orleans. Although DuBois portrays herself as a refined and sophisticated woman, the reader soon comes to realize that, hidingRead MoreThe fusion of Eros and Thanatos in A Streetcar Named Desire1084 Words   |  5 Pages(Cranwell). In Tennesse Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) these fundamental drives of Eros and Thanatos dominate the story from the beginning to the end. This becomes particularly clear through the narrative of the protagonist of the play, Blanche DuBois, to whom the inextricable link betwe en desire and death leads to tragedy. The presence of death in A Streetcar Named Desire is established from the beginning with the opening introduction to the street, where the following events are going toRead MoreA Streetcar Named Desire Analysis918 Words   |  4 Pagesartworks. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby and Tennessee Williams’, A Streetcar Named Desire, the characterization of both Jay Gatsby and Blanche DuBois, the use of symbolism and motifs, as well as the characters’ downfall, contributes to the development of the theme of being stuck in the past. While Jay Gatsby wishes to recreate the past, Blanche DuBois unsuccessfully tries to forget her own. In, The Great Gatsby, it becomes apparent to readers that Gatsbys behavior is relative to his desireRead MoreA Comparison Of The Old South By Belle Reve781 Words   |  4 PagesBy virtue of drawing the parallels between the ideals of the Old South and Dubois’ inherent struggle to actualize her irreconcilable beliefs, it becomes important to understand the method that Dubois utilizes in order to cope with her internal struggles. The loss of Belle Reve amalgamated with the failure of society to accept her ultimately distorts her perception of reality. As aforementioned earlier, Dubois tries to maintain the conventions of the Old South, struggling to internalize the notionRead MoreA Streetcar Named Desire Dialect Journal726 Words   |  3 PagesI misrepresent things to them. I don t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. And if that s sinful, then let me be damned for it!† This quote from the main character in the play, Blanche DuBois, describes perfectly the fantasy world she lives in and her false sense of reality. Just as Blanche avoids being in bright lights to hide her appearance, she’s avoiding seeing a clear view of the unfortunately harsh world. She convinces herself that the world is really the way it is in her mindRead MoreReality vs. Illusion in A Street Car Named Desire by Tennessee Williams714 Words   |  3 Pagesromantic Blanche Dubois and the other characters in the play. The fantasy of Blanche and the other characters is revealed in the play when they try to hide from their reality. The characters acts as if what they were undergoing did not actually happen or were not of any importance.   The play is well written by Williams as a work of social realism. The concept of illusion or fantasy vs. the reality projects the idea of characters who want to run from their real world. The protagonist, Blanche, in this

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.