I read and studied A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams when I was sixteen and, alongside The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, it is my favourite play. I finished it in one sitting and found myself pondering the subtext and characters; Blanche DuBois is a fascinating antihero who finds herself in New Orelands post-World War II in a cosmopolitan city. She is the primary perpetrator of antagonism within the play but the audience can’t help but sympathise with her; from her first scene, her disassociation and struggles are evident.
Despite being ‘daintily dressed’ in ‘white gloves and a hat’ according to Williams’ stage directions, her appearance is ‘incongruous with the setting’, which Williams describes as a ‘cosmopolitan city’ with ‘warm and easy intermingling of races’. Blanche’s Southern Belle personage, which is inferred from her prim costume and attitude, is disruptive to the welcoming community New Orleans has become. Unlike her sister Stella, she is a stock character representing not only a young woman of the American Deep South’s socioeconomic class but what is left of the Old South after their defeat in the Civil War. Her costume also ironically implies purity.
I interpret Williams’ motif of Blanche repeatedly bathing as a means of the character attempting to wash away her past, and thereby, her mistakes. Her continued bathroom use frustrates her brother-in-law, Stanley, whom she speaks to ‘airily’ whilst dressed in ‘a red satin robe’ after leaving the bathroom. The ‘red’ may be symbolic of the bloodshed in the South’s Civil War defeat; Blanche even tells her sister that Stanley ‘maybe what we need to mix with (their) blood now that (we’ve) lost Belle Reve’. It’s easy to call the colour red symbolic of danger, evil and jealousy; Blanche’s dialogue throughout the play emanates a constant change in mental state and emotions. Williams may have alluded to the Scarlet Woman, also known as the Whore of Babylon, in the Book of Revelation. Likeness to such a symbolic character of evil would certainly make an audience question Blanche’s intentions. The character again wears the costume upon her first meeting with Mitch, Williams’ stage directions reading that she slips ‘on the dark red satin wrapper’, the offensive clothing compared to a means of protection and or covering that is easily removed.
Samuel Tapp calls Blanche a ‘victim of the mythology of the Southern belle’, implying that Blanche is the ‘soft’ person she repeatedly claims she is. The anti-hero tells Stella that people like her have been forced to put on ‘butterfly wings and glow’, moving from ‘one leaky roof to another’. The latter quotation is a euphemism on Williams’ part, for a ‘leaky’ roof would imply a minor but consistent inconvenience. In actuality, Blanche is the perpetrator of the frustrations taking place around her, the cause of any ‘leaks’ taking place. Furthermore, the ‘roofs’ Blanche finds herself under belong to men whom she finds security in but only for a limited time. Up until now, she has had to trade love-making for security. ‘Butterfly wings’ are attractive, delicate and thanks to their colours, can blend in and camouflage very well. It’s extremely evident that Blanche is a delicate character and that she can hide from the destruction she is causing.
Throughout the play Blanche remains in subdued, darkened lightening, claiming that the dark is ‘comforting to her’. A paper lantern over the bulb prevents anyone from seeing her, until Mitch angrily ‘tears the paper lantern off the light bulb’. He shouts, claiming he wants to see her ‘good and plain’, a deceitful woman pretending to be virtuous. After this event, Williams’ stage directions describe Blanche’s costume as ‘soiled and crumpled’; the Southern belle did not achieve the relationship she was seeking with Mitch, who instead identified her lies. ‘Soiled’ almost implies that she has been disgraced.
The play's most famous line is said by Blanche, who tells her doctor that she has ‘always depended on the kindness of strangers’. The line has several interpretations: Blanche may have been reaching for sympathy from the audience before the play ends. Alternatively, Williams was signing off the character's inability to depend on herself. Characters like Stanley failed to provide the attention and care Blanche was seeking, leading to her inevitable demise.
I absolutely adore this play, everything about it is brilliant. I was lucky enough to watch it at the theatre and my old musical theatre teacher played Mitch. His wife played Blanche.
Life has been up and down lately. I've been struggling with my self-image and falling more out of love, if that were possible, with myself. It's hard. But I'm getting there.
I hope you're well,
Love,
KT
xxx