Blanche is responsible for her tragedy

Blanche was living in a southern plantation and was educated in a traditional way. When she was little, her character was kind and innocent. She was in the expectation of a beautiful future. But with the declination of her whole family, Blanche began to feel the hardships and could not confront the reality and the injustice of her life. The first thing stroke her was that her husband Allen, who was once a kind and pure man, was discovered to be a gay. When she discovered that, she got extremely astonished because of her innocent attitude toward sex and the puritan morality. When her husband turned to her for an excuse, she scolded him by saying his behavior “disgusted” her. Her words finally resulted in Allen’s suicide. So Blanche had been punishing herself from her deep mind from that time. At the same time, Blanche’s whole family suffered a sequence of incidents. She was tortured by all these misfortunes that made her gloomy and she could not face with the sharp drop in her life. Blanche expected that she could do away with these bounds and has a new life that is carefree. These factors made her be detained in an unbalanced state.

In her struggle, Blanche had chosen a wrong way, unfortunately. She began to have intimate relationships with strange men due to the simple idea. Blanche wanted to fill her emptiness as well as punish herself. She fought against the tradition via her sexual relations with men. The innocent personality of her leads her to easily believe in men and rely on men to resolve all the problems of her life. Contrary to her hopes, she could not make up the hurt she had suffered although she had gained temporary happiness. Moreover, she gradually lost her fame and possession owing to her behavior and was treated as a dissolute woman. Then she was expelled out of her hometown and was going to live with her sister’s house. Despite the fact that she was located in a bad circumstance, she still hungers for a bright future.

A Streetcar Named Desire

Nevertheless, Blanche could not evaluate the current situation correctly in a different circumstance. She often went extremely which indicates her contradictory instinct. One the one hand, she had a rational attitude toward the current situation. For her tomorrow and her sister’s benefit, Blanche tried to do what she could. She tried carefully to explain the loss of Belle Reve to Stanley, preventing the conflicts between Stanley and her; she had gained an insight into Stanley and suggested her sister leave him. She also shared mutual tastes with Mitch and loved him courageously. On the other hand, she established an illusion to escape her from the actual world. If she met something dedicate, she always sang herself into the illusion to alleviate her pains and search for comfort. Besides, she still wanted to retain her past image in the expectation of enhancing her confidence. Nonetheless, the miserable past life often turned up in her mind and made her hysterical.

The split of her personality made her incapable of making the right options when facing the reality. She clung to her southern cultural character and behaved her picky styles. While in a brand-new circumstance, her style is no longer a rational way of life. After she came to her sister’s home, she implied her sister that her life is of a low standard. She rejected Eunice’s kind suggestions and was not patient with other’s kindness. Actually, she was fearful that she would be deceived and hurt for another time. Blanche cares too much about the other’s views of her since she was looking forward to obtaining other’s acceptance and concealing her past. When her sister required her to “volunteer the information if you want to tell me”, Blanche replies: “you thought I’d be fired? ...I was too exhausted by all. . . suggested I take a leave of absence” (A Streetcar Named Desire, p.1826). Thus we can conclude that Blanche’s heart was hurt for another time by her sister’s question. Blanche asked whether there was any liquor and said that it can release her from stress. Blanche rambled in her statement in order to keep her little confidence and prevent her from being hurt again. She had concealed her miserable past and anxiety, so her sister could not know it and offer her help timely, and her sister didn’t even speak to her at the end of the play.

Williams had successfully characterized Blanche’s brittle, sensitive and innocent personality which caused the tragic fate of her. She is sentenced to be rejected by the society since she could not be accepted by the society. Regardless of the fact that she had attempted to demonstrate a new image, her contradictory personality made her incapable of confronting the actual world and establishing a new perspective on life. She strived positively for other’s respect, but she was not confident with herself. Therefore, the tragic fate of Blanche rests with the complex experiences under her complex personality.