‘Blanche is no tragic heroine, just an infuriati ng, self-pitying snob.’
Examine this view of Blanche Dubois in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’. (25/25)
‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ is unquestionably a tragic play that relies on conflict and discordance to
propel forward the terrible fates of, most notably, its female characters. The mental decline and
destruction of Blanche, a convincing candidate for the play’s tragic heroine, could ultimately be
perceived as a vision of fragility that suffers from uncivilised and unjust brutality. However, her
antagonising prejudices might be more successful in driving the audience to reject her status as
tragic, and instead find sympathy with the defensive representative of Northern American
meritocracy, Stanley, or his oppressed and abused wife, Stella.
Blanche appears to fulfil the typical conventions, as outlined by Greek philosopher Aristotle, of a
tragic hero; descending from the American version of nobility, her aristocratic French roots project
an image of prestige and respectability that suits the Southern Belle appearance she forms, ‘looking
as if she were arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party’. Having vaguely ‘lost’ the colonial mansion
‘with the great big white columns’, her descent from nobility is evident from the beginning of the
play, perhaps first conveyed through her ‘fading’ looks which are akin to the dilapidated ‘white…
weathered grey’ architecture of New Orleans, that is ominously shrouded in an ‘atmosphere of
decay’. Williams garners his contemporary audience’s conventional sympathies towards the gentler
sex, presenting Blanche first as fragile and afraid, easily disturbed by the ‘cries of the jungle’,
‘springing up’ as a ‘cat screeches near the window’. By juxta-posing her ‘delicate’ and ‘dainty’
femininity, one might argue that it is the playwright’s intention to portray Blanche as the tragic
heroine, a victim to the hostile environment (‘she is incongruous to the setting’) and the brutal and
base masculinity that Stanley, ‘the survivor of the Stone Age’, embodies. Surrounded by ‘lurid
reflections… in odd, sinuous shapes’ and a ‘weird distortion’ of the haunting Varsouviana polka,
Williams encourages tragic feelings of pity and fear from the audience, who must passively watch as
she falls into ‘the trap’, the ‘future paved out for her’ like the unchanging rails of a streetcar. Driven
by desire and fleeing the repercussions of her past, by fulfilling her inevitable fate, Blanche arguably
certifies herself as the tragic heroine.
Regarded by critics as a ‘sexual terrorist’ that ‘roars out Williams’ celebratory terror of sex’, Stanley
might easily be viewed as the antagonist to Blanche’s tragedy, his cruel, ‘deliberate’ behaviour the
Examine this view of Blanche Dubois in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’. (25/25)
‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ is unquestionably a tragic play that relies on conflict and discordance to
propel forward the terrible fates of, most notably, its female characters. The mental decline and
destruction of Blanche, a convincing candidate for the play’s tragic heroine, could ultimately be
perceived as a vision of fragility that suffers from uncivilised and unjust brutality. However, her
antagonising prejudices might be more successful in driving the audience to reject her status as
tragic, and instead find sympathy with the defensive representative of Northern American
meritocracy, Stanley, or his oppressed and abused wife, Stella.
Blanche appears to fulfil the typical conventions, as outlined by Greek philosopher Aristotle, of a
tragic hero; descending from the American version of nobility, her aristocratic French roots project
an image of prestige and respectability that suits the Southern Belle appearance she forms, ‘looking
as if she were arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party’. Having vaguely ‘lost’ the colonial mansion
‘with the great big white columns’, her descent from nobility is evident from the beginning of the
play, perhaps first conveyed through her ‘fading’ looks which are akin to the dilapidated ‘white…
weathered grey’ architecture of New Orleans, that is ominously shrouded in an ‘atmosphere of
decay’. Williams garners his contemporary audience’s conventional sympathies towards the gentler
sex, presenting Blanche first as fragile and afraid, easily disturbed by the ‘cries of the jungle’,
‘springing up’ as a ‘cat screeches near the window’. By juxta-posing her ‘delicate’ and ‘dainty’
femininity, one might argue that it is the playwright’s intention to portray Blanche as the tragic
heroine, a victim to the hostile environment (‘she is incongruous to the setting’) and the brutal and
base masculinity that Stanley, ‘the survivor of the Stone Age’, embodies. Surrounded by ‘lurid
reflections… in odd, sinuous shapes’ and a ‘weird distortion’ of the haunting Varsouviana polka,
Williams encourages tragic feelings of pity and fear from the audience, who must passively watch as
she falls into ‘the trap’, the ‘future paved out for her’ like the unchanging rails of a streetcar. Driven
by desire and fleeing the repercussions of her past, by fulfilling her inevitable fate, Blanche arguably
certifies herself as the tragic heroine.
Regarded by critics as a ‘sexual terrorist’ that ‘roars out Williams’ celebratory terror of sex’, Stanley
might easily be viewed as the antagonist to Blanche’s tragedy, his cruel, ‘deliberate’ behaviour the
