Blanche Dubois Analysis

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Blanche Dubois’ arrival at her sister, Stella’s apartment in New Orleans generates complex relationships and anxieties among Blanche, Stella, and her husband, Stanley Kowalski. Although Blanche seems to be broke, she disdains the Kowalskis’ crude abode and criticizes their lifestyle. Brought up as a southern belle, Blanche lived in an elegant estate entitled Belle Reve, married a man she truly loved, and became an English teacher. She lost everything she owned and loved to desire, which eventually “brought her” to New Orleans (70). Blanche, however, still attempts to preserve her appearance through deception, lies, and rejection of reality. The juxtaposition of light and darkness represents the struggle between realism and idealism through Blanche’s antagonistic relationship with Stanley and her exploration of the boundary between the exterior and interior worlds. Her husband’s death left Blanche in darkness after the internal light that…show more content…
She desperately clings to the ideal vision of a youthful, romantic life at Belle Reve when faced with the reality of New Orleans. Upon entering the “horrible place” where her sister lives, Blanche insists that Stella immediately “turn that over-light off” (19). The “merciless glare” of reality shocks Blanche; she would not dare allow her true body and character “to be looked at” in open light (19). Blanche fabricates a lustful, desiring character during her date with Mitch. With “the lights off,” Blanche successfully makes sexual innuendos under the pretext of an “old-fashioned,” high-class lady (87, 91). She purposely asks Mitch to sleep with her that night in French, and manipulates their conversation to lead them into a close embrace. Their date continues in the darkness until the blinding “headlight of [a] locomotive glares into the room” and plunges Blanche into the reality of her “lost” love
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