Blanche Desire Scene Of Desire

The audience already knows that Blanche is mentally unstable, however in this scene Tennessee Williams uses different techniques to demonstrate how the tension aggravates her case. The scene starts with Blanche dressed in a “somewhat soiled and crumpled white satin evening gown (...) placing the rhinestone tiara on her head”. Blanche is drunk and is trying to persuade herself that she is still young and beautiful by wearing a beautiful gown, however even dressed up she cannot hide her true self; the dress in itself is crumpled and soiled, exactly the way Blanche feels about herself and the reason why she tries to purify herself all the time. The audience perceives Blanche’s mental instability when she sees herself in the mirror. “She catches her breath and slams the mirror”, the mirror represents the reality, it contrasts with Blanche’s mind, in which she lives in a fantasy world where she is still young and unsoiled, the fact that she slams down the mirror shows that Blanche is surprised and repelled by her image and therefore has a mental issue with accepting reality and who she has become. Furthermore, in the scene there are “inhuman jungle voices” and “shadows” that represent the threats Blanche is under, Stanley doesn’t notice those features it can therefore be assumed that they are in Blanche’s mind, she is truly afraid and her mind deals with it by creating these sound and images, had Blanche been mentally stable perhap she would have been able to calm herself down