‘Many factors contribute to Blanche’s tragedy.

’
In the light of this statement, explore the ways in which Williams presents Blanche’s downfall.

In ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, Blanche’s downfall is inevitable, as symbolised by the

unswerving journey of the ‘Streetcar’ that marks the ‘end of the road’ for Blanche. Although
Williams presents this downfall as the culmination of societal factors outside of Blanche’s
control, thus condemning the 1950s society that destroys her, he also conveys Blanche’s own
self-destructive nature in an effort to highlight the complexities of an individual.

Firstly, Blanche’s downfall could be seen as a result of the class antagonism between her and
Stanley that characterises the narrative of the rest of the play. Blanche, representing the purist
and lofty ideals of the Old South, is evidently more powerful than Stanley, as reflected in her
costuming: “she is daintily dressed in a white suit”. The imagery of “white” in her dressing as
well as her name, “French for ‘white woods’”, highlights her superiority and pompous stature.
This is directly juxtaposed to Stanley’s scruffy “denim work clothes”. Thus, Williams orchestrates
a battle between the proletariat and the affluent bourgeoisie right from the start of the play.
However, within the context of the time, where the Old South ideals were fading and the working
class were becoming more valued after the war, Blanche’s arrival, as according to Bigsby and
Porter, is not only the “clash between the Old and New South”, but the inevitable “death of a
myth”, and hence this battle between the classes seems more in favour of Stanley from the get
go, and all the more orchestrated for Blanche’s downfall. Williams’ allegory here is to criticize
society’s view of an individual, as audiences see how Blanche is unfairly pitched into a negative
light just from her “incongruous appearance”. Alternatively, Williams states that “one major
theme of my work is the destructive power of society on a sensitive, non – conformist individual”,
and so Blanche’s incongruity and unwillingness to be “pulled down...off them columns” by
Stanley highlights society’s disdain and rigidity towards an ‘abnormal’ individual like Blanche, a
sentiment that would have been felt by an ‘abnormal’ individual like Williams as a homosexual.

Additionally, Blanche’s downfall is marked by obvious signs of mental deterioration, which

Williams uses to highlight Blanche's steep decline into insanity. Blanche takes an accusatory
tone right after embracing Stella, where images of messy deaths, of blood and physical pain
proliferate her speech about Belle Reeve: “I fought and bled”. The emotive phrase highlights her
mental trauma, and audiences notice her use of a metaphor of physical pain to show the
magnitude of wounds that she carries. Perhaps, the start of the play already foreshadows
Blanche’s mental decline, in which she recognises: “I can’t be alone! I’m not too well”, with the
euphemistic use of “well” showing Blanche’s own acknowledgement of her instability, effectively
gaining pathos from the audience. The most prominent scene of Blanche’s mental deterioration
is in the rape scene of scene 10, where Stanley’s predatory advances are accompanied by “lurid
shadows”, and “cries” which are effective in producing shocking visual and sonic impacts as
seen in the blaring music in Young Vic’s 2013 production. Whilst to contemporary audiences,
Blanche’s terror is felt in this nightmarish conjuring, to modern audiences, especially with more
awareness of mental health, Blanche’s visions are recognised as being borderline
schizophrenic. Thus, it is quite apt to say that Blanche’s mental decline from Scene 10 onwards
brings her closer to her institutionalisation at the end of the play. Williams perhaps takes such
obvious measures to put mental health as the primary factor of Blanche’s demise due to his own
experiences with his sister, Rose, who suffered a botched lobotomy and would have likely
accommodated the “lurid” and “grotesque shadows” to her everyday life, and Williams’ shock at
her institutionalisation is reflected in Blanche’s tragic demise.

On the other hand, Blanche’s destruction could also be portrayed as the result of internal
factors, such as her own lustful desires. Blanche’s journey, first to Desire and then to
Cemeteries, sums up her life, driven by sexual passion and finally ending up in the ‘living death’
of the asylum. Hence, Blanche’s sexual lusts are portrayed as just as equal of a force to the fate
society dictates for her. Her promiscuity is seen in her interactions with Stanley, she admits to
Stella that “I called him a little boy and laughed and flirted. Yes, I was flirting with your husband!”
Her nonchalant attitude and use of “little boy” foreshadows her kissing a young boy in Scene 5,
thus alluding to her self-compromising nature. More shockingly, her open admission to “flirting”
with Stanley to Stella dramatically plays a role in shunning Blanche at the end of the play, hence
Blanche’s admission inadvertently causes her downfall. In fact, Blanche’s contradictory nature,
fastidiously holding on to the “pure” image of a moth, yet being innately flirtatious, is Williams’
way to highlight the complexities of an individual. However, from a feminist perspective,
Blanche’s flirtatiousness can be seen as not so much the result of innert lusts but the result of
social conditioning, where women in the 1950s were traditionally dependent on men, and thus
Blanche’s contradictions and hyperbolic flirtatiousness could be society’s fault. Alternatively,
perhaps Williams’ adds yet another complexity to Blanche’s “moth” characterisation by
suggesting that just as a moth is always drawn to light, Blanche always draws herself to danger
(as light is symbolised as a threat in the play). Hence, Williams once again alludes to Blanche’s
self-compromising nature, and perhaps hints that she is not as fragile as a moth when she
purposefully puts herself in precarious situations. Hence, Blanche’s suggestive behaviour,
whether the result of social conditioning, or an innate sense of lust, catalyses her towards the
sexual violation she experiences in Scene 9 that marks her tragic demise.

Conclusively, Blanche is a tragic figure destined to a fatalistic ending, and whilst this might be
the result of societal factors outside of her sphere of control, her actions also catalyse her
demise. This complexity within Blanche is Williams’ pessimistic message about the fragility of
life, not just in Blanche, but for all characters and thus all individuals in society.