‘Blanche is no tragic heroine, just an infuriating, self-pitying snob’. Examine this view of Blanch DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. PDF

Preview

Summary

‘Blanche is no tragic heroine, just an infuriating, self-pitying snob’. Examine this view of Blanch DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire....

Description

‘Blanche is no tragic heroine, just an infuriating, self-pitying snob’. Examine this view of Blanch DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire.

A tragic hero is often typified as a noble character with a flawed personality. Whilst this hero is most generally seen in Shakespearean plays, they also feature in more modern melodramas such as A Streetcar Named Desire. The ambiguity of such characters differ, however; Williams depicts Blanche DuBois as an extremely subtle portrayal of a tragic heroine, in stark contrast to Shakespeare’s Othello, a profoundly strong protagonist and tragic hero. A play that explores the conventions of theatricalism and the illusion of reality, Williams writes A Streetcar Named Desire to exploit the subtle tragic heroine, Blanche, and her placement within a highly male dominated consumerist society. Mary Ann Corrigan argues that ‘realism and theatricalism, often viewed as stage rivals, complement each other in this play’. Realism in the theatre was a general movement that began in the 19th-century theatre, around the 1870s, and remained present through much of the 20th century. It developed a set of dramatic and theatrical conventions with the aim of bringing a greater fidelity of real life to texts and performances. Henrik Ibsen, a Norwegian playwright, is often cited to be one of Tenessee Williams biggest influence. As the writer of ‘The Doll’s House’, this play is generally considered Ibsen’s most famous and arguably most influential creation, which not only impacted historic theatre like A Streetcar Named Desire, but modern art also. It is suggested that Tenessee re-appropriates Ibsen’s realism conventions, marrying it with theatricality. Characters within realism and theatricalism-based plays often find themselves in desperate situations, where they are forced to make difficult moral decisions. Frequently they find themselves haunted by past mistakes, unable to move on with their lives because of strict social conventions, much like Blanche who struggles to conform to the New South and New Orleans, a society that differs strongly with that of the protagonists past in Belle Reve. Introduced by Eunice’s first ironic words, ‘What’s the matter honey? Are you lost?’, Blanche is painted with a snobbish, hubristic and parasitic quality as she replies in a ‘faintly hysterical’ response. Whilst she is physically lost in the streets of New Orleans, her introduction has a deeper nuance, as if she is lost on a more profound level. As her conflicted character is progressively built on throughout the play, it becomes clearer that she is lost and stuck in the past, unable to adapt to the present. Blanche’s attitude towards the New South is unwelcoming and inconsiderate, as her life, for her, still remains at Belle Reve. Her elitist approach to other characters is an attempt to elevate herself, although Stanley sees right through her façade and much like Iago in Othello, seeks to consume her. It is only at the denouement of the play that sees Stanley’s plan fall into action and Blanche descends like the subtle tragic heroine she is. It is in scene 6 that Blanche’s attributes as a tragic heroine become apparent. Structured as an insight into the inner landscape of Blanche, the scene contains a flashback, a new theatrical device within 20th century theatre that is used to cast light on her past attitude

towards life. The flashback eludes to Blanche’s compassionate side, and to the relationship she once had with Alan, a boy with ‘softness and tenderness which wasn’t like a man’s’. Revealing her past to Mitch in this scene makes her vulnerable, but humane, contradicting the notion that she is a ‘self-pitying snob’, but also reinforcing the flashback and its importance within her downfall. It is when Blanche witnesses her husband sleeping with another man that tips her beyond compassionate, saying to him ‘you disgust me’. Promptly after he commits suicide, unable to accept his condemnation as homosexual in the 20 th century, and unable to stand the heavy sense of ‘disgust’ from Blanche and the ungendered language, ‘you’ used. It is clear that Blanche is disgusted rather than disappointed which is what makes it harder for Alan to comprehend. To be gay at the time was seen as taboo, and to have people aware of your sexuality meant constant disgust and frustration within society, along with psychological disintegration. Scene 6 is the true revelation of Blanche’s character. Showing her softer side through her courtly love of Alan, her snobbish and hubristic attitude in the scenes that follow contrast hugely, making her a subtle tragic heroine but an obviously conflicted character. Her demise at the end of the play occurs with her condemnation into an asylum, and whilst not being a physical death like a tragic hero, she dies metaphorically, consumed by the act of rape by Stanley. The classic climax of scene 10 and 11, designed to not only terrify Blanche but the audience also, is the catharsis of the play, where the characters (and audience) realise the consequences of actions. Incredibly intense and destructive, the denouement of the play reveals classic attributes of a tragic heroine, but also eludes to subtle qualities of a woman trapped in the past and unable to reconcile it with the present....