Unsympathetic Blanche Dubois example essay topic

The Unsympathetic Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire" Blanche DuBois is the most famous female character in A Streetcar Named Desire written by Tennessee Williams. It is an unusual observation to make about the heroine of the Pulitzer prize-winning play, A Streetcar Named Desire, but a very concise and perceptive characterization. Although Blanche is considered to be the principal character, she most often emerges as an unsympathetic character -- a selfish, proud woman, a sexual predator, who lives largely in a luxurious world of her own creation. Blanche DuBois is a difficult woman who would probably try the patience of Job with her theatrical hysterics, encouraging value judgments, and calculated deceit. It is interesting how she is presented as an unsympathetic character even though she is the primary objective of the play in the story. Blanche DuBois arrives in New Orleans (on a streetcar named Desire) from Laurel Mississippi, for an extended visit with her sister Stella and Stella's husband, Stanley Kowalski.

She resembles a faded flower, a fallen Southern belle who is comfortable only in plantation surroundings, and is decidedly out of place in the blue-collar neighborhood in which the Kowalski lives. Blanche's pompous airs are immediately evident, and when the sisters have their first conversation, there is little wonder why Stella couldn't wait to distance herself from her family's Mississippi plantation, Belle Reve. Blanche wastes little time in criticizing where Stella lives, as well as her physical appearance. She attempts to take the vinegar sting out of her acid remarks with a little sugar: "What are you doing in a place like this? ... Never, never, never in my worst dreams could I picture -- Only Poe!

... You " ve put on some weight, yes, you " re just as plump as a little partridge! And it's so becoming to you! ... You messy child, you, you " ve spilt something on that pretty white lace collar!

About your hair -- you ought to have it cut in a feather bob with your dainty features" (1801-1802). In one rare moment of truth, Blanche notes, "I know I fib a good deal. After all, a woman's charm is fifty per cent illusion" (1811). Blanche DuBois can tell lies with such a straight face, which is almost chilling. Blanche is an escapist who says, "I do not want realism". She hides from bright lights, just as she hides from the truth.

Rather than telling the real story behind her visit, Blanche, who is a high-school teacher, explains that she was visiting in the middle of the semester because the high school superintendent, Mr. Graves "suggested I take a leave of absence" (1801). Wishing to divert attention away from herself, Blanche starts attacking Stella, accusing her of leaving her while she struggled to keep the plantation together. Finally, Blanche manages to make Stella feel guilty. She shrieks, "I stayed at Belle Reve and tried to hold it together!

... You just came home in time for the funerals, Stella. And funerals are pretty compared to deaths... And now you sit there telling me with your eyes that I let the place go!

... Yes, accuse me! Sit there and stare at me, thinking I let the place go! I let the place go? Where were you?

In bed with your -- Polack!" (1803-1804) Blanche's negative attitudes become increasingly apparent, but her cruelty, especially towards her sister, makes it difficult to feel sympathy for her suffering. When Blanche (whose own marital history is both dirty and tragic) becomes critical of Stella's marriage to Stanley, Stella finally questions her sister's superior attitude. Blanche responds, "I am not being or feeling at all superior, Stella. Believe me I'm not! It's just this. This is how I look at it.

A man like that is someone to go out with -- once -- twice -- three times when the devil is in you. But live with? Have a child by?" (1825). This reveals much about Blanche's true nature.

She is, spiritually, a sexual predator who would go out (and to bed) with a man like Stanley Kowalski, but would never consider marrying him because she must keep the outward appearance of being a cultured Southern lady. Blanche uses her most verbal assaults for Stanley, whom she considers a Neanderthal with no social value. While Stanley leers at her, Blanche sneers, "He acts like an animal, has an animal's habits! ... There's even something -- sub-human -- something not quite to the stage of humanity yet! ...

Stanley Kowalski -- survivor of the Stone Age! Bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle! And you -- you here -- waiting for him! Maybe he " ll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you! That is, if kisses have been discovered yet!

Night falls and the other apes gather!" (1825). While condemning Stanley, Blanche is describing herself indirectly in a mysterious way. She is a sexual creature who enjoys young animals, perhaps because that is when their defenses are down. Blanche DuBois has not left her job to take a rest. She had been caught with a seventeen-year-old student, and the boy's father had threatened the school with legal action.

When visiting Stella and Stanley, Blanche's dangerous desires again arise, while waiting for her respectable middle-aged suitor, Mitch, to call. She never shows her face to him. Mitch falls in love with her, believing her to be pure and innocent. Throughout their courtship, she plays her role perfectly. She even tells him that she is not easy like many girls. However, She shows her real face in front of the newspaper delivery boy, attempting to seduce the child with dialogue she probably had read in a cheap romance novel: "Has anyone ever told you that you look like a young Prince out of Arabian Nights?" ...

Come here. I want to kiss you, just once, softly and sweetly on your mouth! ... Now run along, quickly! It would be nice to keep you, but I've got to be good -- and keep my hands off children" (1831). This woman is definitely not someone parents would want to hire as their baby sitter.

Blanche DuBois is very much the female counterpart of Stanley Kowalski. Stanley is a large and loud man who loves to exert physical dominance over women. He can get away with mistreating Stella during the day and she will forgive him anything because of his sexual prowess at night. He is rude, with the manners of a pig.

Stanley is the king of his domain just as Blanche once was a Queen in Belle Reve. When he has her past investigated, Blanche's lies collapse like a house of cards. Stanley's cruel investigation of his sister-in-law is a really important achievement, as the two fight to dominate the other. While Stella is giving birth to Stanley's child, Stanley emerges with Blanche, stripping her of all that is left of her pathetic fantasy. She knew what would happen.

Does that mean we are to be alone in here? She asks (1850). The issue of rape is confused because of Blanche's previous attraction for Stanley as well as her dark and dirty past. Williams was aware that many readers do not sympathize with the victim. It is easy to condemn women for their loose behavior and claim that female victims of rape bring sexual violence upon themselves. There can be no doubt that Blanche DuBois is an emotionally unstable woman.

But is this instability brought on by others or by herself? She is a liar and a hypocrite, who judges people by value standards she can not maintain herself. Blanche is a selfish woman who can control people and situations to appear as she wants them to, not as they truly are. Blanche's fate is a punishment for a fallen woman. She is a human with multiple personalities, a woman who wants beauty and to see the sunset from her plantation porch, but is, at the same time, consumed by a passion for immorality and darkness. Because she has destroyed her relationships with the people closest to her, she is forced to depend "on the kindness of strangers" (1860).

In the final analysis, Blanche DuBois is a character who inspires more contempt than sympathy, for the tragic consequences from which resulted her actions and imagination. WORK CITED Williams, Tennessee. "A Streetcar Named Desire". Gen. Ed. Bay, Nina. The Norton Anthology of American Literature (Fifth Edition, Volume 2).

New York: Norton & Company, 1998, 1794-1860.