Blance DuBois

"Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire" is to some extent living an unreal existence." Jonathan Briggs, book critic for the Clay County Freepress. In Tennessee Williams' play, "A Streetcar Named Desire" the readers are introduced to a character named Blanche DuBois. Blanche is Stella's younger sister who has come to visit Stella and her husband Stanley in New Orleans. After their first meeting Stanley develops a strong dislike for Blanche and everything associated with her. Among the things Stanley dislikes about Blanche are her "spoiled-girl" manners and her indirect and quizzical way of conversing. Stanley also believes that Blanche has conned him and his wife out of the family mansion. In his opinion, she is a good-for-nothing "leech" that has attached itself to his household, and is just living off him. Blanche's lifelong habit of avoiding unpleasant realities leads to her breakdown as seen in her irrational response to death, her dependency, and her inability to defend herself from Stanley's attacks. Blanche’s situation with her husband is the key to her later behavior. She married rather early at the age of sixteen to whom a boy she believed was a perfect gentleman. He was sensitive, understanding, and civiliz

He knew her, he made her face reality, and in a way he exposed her to the bright luminous light she could not stand all her life. The deaths were long, disparaging and horrible on someone like Blanche. She tries to not let the horridness come out on top of her image, wanting in an illusive and magical world instead. All of Blanche's troubles with Stanley that in the end left her in a mental institution could have been avoided by her. This demonstrates how dependent she is on Mitch, and consequently Blanche tries to get him to marry her. Gradually her reputation as a whore built up and everyone in her home town knew about her. She could not possibly effectively refute against him in front of Stella. As she caught him one evening in their house with an older man, she said nothing, permitting her disbelief to build up inside her. Overtime the memory comes back to her, the musical tune from the incident doesn't end in her mind until she has something alcoholic to drink. Unfortunately for her he was a homosexual. Before her, Stanley's household was exactly how he wanted it to be. The alcohol seems to ease her through the memories of the night of Allan's death.