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Essay On Blanche In A Streetcar Named Desire

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Williams’ major female character in A Streetcar Named Desire is Blanche. Blanche is an aging Southern beautiful woman who lives in a state of permanent panic about her fading beauty. Blanche is fatally divided, swinging between the desire to be a young, beautiful lady who concerned with old-fashioned southern ways and a bohemian erring excessive in her appetites. In New Orleans, Blanche hides her real age and vicious past as she tries to attract an appropriate husband to clean up her life (Abbotson50).The loss of security has sent Blanche on a desperate search for protection: “I’ve run for protection Stella, from under one leaky roof to another leaky roof –because it was storm –all storm, and i was caught in the center” (v.114). …show more content…

There is a rising action as Blanche and Stanley 's relationship becomes more and more difficult, with Blanche constantly belittling and insulting him, and Stanley becoming more aggressive and angry. Blanche grows to despise Stanley when she sees him beating her pregnant sister and Stanley permanently hates Blanche after he overhears her trying to convince her sister Stella to leave Stanley because he is common. There is also a rising action in Stanley’s revealing of Blanche 's secret past to Stella and Mitch. The climax of the play occurs when Stanley rapes Blanche. This brutal act marks the completion of her mental decline, pushing her over the edge from sanity to madness. The play’s final scene has "falling action" as after some weeks of the rape, Stella secretly prepares for Blanche’s departure to a mental asylum and Blanche leaves with the doctor after a minor struggle and after he shows her his kindness and tenderness. Stella’s reaction to Blanche’s condition and her decision to carry on her marriage because she knows that the fact that her husband had raped her sister would destroy a marital relationship on which she depends, constitute the play’s resolution. The play ends with an image of Stella sitting on the porch with her baby in her arms and Stanley comforts her after her sister has just been taken off to the mental asylum (Bloom

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