INTASC Principle 7
Artifact

Paper 4: Critical Analysis of A Streetcar Named Desire.
The Truth Shall Set You Free

    In Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche Debois, a powerful woman from the south uses a kind of manipulation that arouses different emotions and behaviors in the men in her life while she is living with her sister, Stella, in New Orleans.  As a result of the manipulation used and the two different behaviors that emerge from it, there are two possible outcomes for Blanche.  She can fool Mitch, and convince him to make her happy using lies and deceit to get what she wants, or Stanley can discover her to be a liar.  Unfortunately for Blanche, the less desirable, yet more fitting outcome occurs before the other, and in showing Blanche’s attempt for a better life, Williams demonstrates that honesty is one of the best ways by which a better life can be achieved.

    Blanche is a very versatile character that must be examined.  In order to fully understand her and her actions, a closer look is necessary.  Blanche is sneaky and scheming, as she feels she has to be.  She arrives from Belle Reve where her family has lost everything.  She is a faded southern dame without a dime.  “Showing up at her sister’s house, emotionally and financially broken, this Blanche is a fluttering, preening mess (Gardner).  She is “a metaphor for all that is vile about women” (Lant).  “She is a misfit, a liar, her ‘airs’ alienate people, she must act superior to them which alienates them further” (Kazan 22).  According to the character, Stanley, Blanche is all about “lies and conceit and tricks!” (Williams 127).  Because of her past transgressions, including seducing a young boy and compelling her husband to kill himself just by saying a few words, we see that she is all of these things, and the superiority that she achieves is all thanks to her manipulative power over others.  “All of the characters are trying to build lives for themselves” (Londrè 48).  This is indeed true, as Blanche “needs someone to help her.  Protection” (Kazan 23), and she hopes to get what she wants through manipulating her victims, Mitch and Stanley.

    What Blanche seeks from her victims is two different things.  In Mitch, Blanche seeks protection and a fruitful life.  In Stanley, she seeks secrecy as she acts innocent and simple so that her past will not arouse suspicion.  The manipulative ways of Blanche make Mitch putty in her hands.  Through him, she can get close to anything she wants because she sees that Mitch is falling head over heals for her.  If she succeeds in controlling Mitch, she will get the life that she desires: a life of no worries, companionship, and a new start.  However, her manipulation has the opposite effect on Stanley.  It causes him to become suspicious, and his potential reaction to her behavior will create an outcome for Blanche that is contrary to the one she is at that moment searching for in Mitch.

    Blanche uses Mitch in several ways.  First and foremost, she avoids the truth when she is around Mitch.  When Mitch asks her about her age, she responds with “Why do you want to know?” (Williams 94) and then carefully changes the subject to Mitch’s sick mother.  “Why did your mother want to know my age?”  “Mother is sick.”  “I’m sorry to hear it.  Badly?” (Williams 94).  The subject of age is not again mentioned.  She also puts up lampshades and only goes out with Mitch at night, so that he will not be able to tell that she is far from being a spring chicken. “I can’t stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action” (Williams 55).

    Another way in which Blanche dominates over Mitch is by taking advantage of his flaws.  He is a lonely man who lives with his mother.  Blanche brings up a tragic story of her past that vibrantly shows her need to be cared for and loved.  The story heightens in intense emotion and shows Blanche as a victim who is overall lonely.  “I found out.  In the worst of all possible ways.  By coming suddenly into a room that had two people in it… the boy I had married and an older man who had been his friend for years….” (Williams 95).  This story of sadness and sincerity is used strategically to inspire sympathy, and as Londrè suggests, “it gains her what she has not been able to achieve in two months or so of artful deceit: a proposal of marriage” (Londrè 57).  It seems that Blanche will have her happy ending.

    After hearing her tragic story, Mitch brings something to Blanche’s attention.  This “something” is already known by Blanche and is probably the main reason as to why Blanche tells her story.  She tells it so Mitch will be convinced of their similarities.  “You need somebody.  And I need somebody, too.  Could it be – you and me, Blanche?” (Williams 96) Mitch asks.  These are the words Blanche has been searching for, and for the moment, it seems as though she will find her happy ending that she has earned rightfully through her art of manipulation.

    Within Mitch lies the source of Blanche’s happiness, and she is determined to get happiness.  However, her manipulative behavior gets her into trouble with a man who is quite different from Mitch.  Stanley Kowalski is a man with a plan.  As Stella puts it, “No.  Stanley’s the only one of this crowd that’s likely to get anywhere” (Williams 50), and this may be thanks to the fact that he is unlike his friends who are a little easier for women to control.  He cannot be tricked with a flirtatious attitude and “southern charm,” and this is immediately seen as he is immediately suspicious of Blanche’s behavior.  He doesn’t trust her in the least which he shows through his inquiry of Blanche’s story.  “I don’t like to be swindled… Where’s the money if the place was sold?” (Williams 85).  Stanley is worried that Stella is being cheated.  “Learning that Belle Reve had to be ‘sacrificed or something,’ Stanley becomes concerned that Stella must have been swindled out of her share of the property” (Londrè 53).  Stanley goes through Blanche’s things in search for evidence of her betrayal, “pulling out clothes and jewelry that to him represent a fortune” (Londrè 53).  He then attempts to let Stella in on her sister’s deceit when he says, “Open your eyes to this stuff!  You think she got them out of a teacher’s pay?” (Williams 35). 

    Once he has spoken with Stella about her sister, he turns to confront Blanche who seems to have an answer for everything.  He suggests that she must be rich to afford the clothes, to which she responds, “Why, those were a tribute from an admirer of mine” (Williams 38).  Blanche tries desperately to play around with Stanley as she plays around with Mitch. “Oh, in my youth I excited some admiration.  But look at me now!  Would you think it possible that I was once considered to be – attractive?” (Williams 39). She insults her own looks in an attempt to get a compliment.  However, her playful banter cannot trick Stanley into thinking she is innocent, and he says nothing to flatter her.

    As Blanche continues to manipulate, Stanley becomes more and more threatened. “Stanley, whom she’s antagonized by her destructiveness aimed at his home, but especially by her need to be superior, uses her past, which he digs up, to destroy her” (Kazan 24).  The thing that causes Stanley to spring into action is Blanche’s attempt at manipulating Stella (Stanley’s wife).  In a move to get rid of Stanley, Blanche implores her sister, Stella to see Stanley as a brute.  Blanche aims directly at her brother-in-law and attacks him through trying to sway her sister.  Stella is not shaken in her love for him, however, and Stanley, after hearing Blanche’s harsh words, is even more determined to bring Blanche to her knees. 

    Stanley finds out about Blanche’s past, which indicates that she has been loose with many men, she has seduced a schoolboy, and she is a liar and a fraud.  Her manipulation aimed at Stanley comes back to haunt her, and soon, the manipulation she aimed at Mitch will do the same.  Mitch finds out, through Stanley, about Blanche’s past.  Therefore, Mitch punishes Blanche for her deceitful actions.  When he comes to confront her, Blanche attempts to answer Mitch’s questions with more excuses.  When he asks her why he’s never seen her in the afternoon, Blanche suggests that it is his fault, even though she has been avoiding him in the hours that have daylight.  “Blanche does her best to maneuver the relationship into its familiar patterns” (Londrè 58).  She tries to bend Mitch to her will as she has in the past, but with his new knowledge, he refuses to be swindled again. 

    “Mitch removes the paper lantern, stares at her under a glaring light, and confronts her with the names of men who knew her at the Flamingo” (Londrè 58), a place known for the sin within its walls.  In ripping the lantern off the light bulb, Mitch unveils Blanche’s hidden truth.  The end of their relationship is over almost immediately after Mitch says, “You lied to me, Blanche” (Williams 119).  Because of her lies and deceit, all hopes and dreams Blanch once had, are obliterated.  Blanche is fairly punished by Mitch.  Next comes her not so fair punishment. “Oh! So you want some rough-house!  All right, let’s have some rough-house!” (Williams 130).  Stanley rapes Blanche. “The rape is to be a punishment, a retribution brought on by Blanche’s great crime” (Lant).  Blanche’s crime of deception and trickery was indeed great, but it was not bad enough that it deserved rape.

    By using manipulation to get a better life, Blanche damns herself to a worse one.   “According to Roxana Stuart, who played Blanche in two different productions, ‘the first four scenes are comedy; then come two scenes of elegy, mood, romance; then five scenes of tragedy’” (Londrè 49).  All of these genres are driven by Blanche’s manipulation.  At first, it is simply funny.  Her smug outlook on her sister’s life and her comments that not so subtly hint at how Blanche doesn’t like her surroundings are humorous.  “This – can this be – her home?” (Williams 16).  Then her manipulative words work in her favor and secure her romance with Mitch.  And finally, she is punished severely because of the manipulation.  Blanche is a “hopeless heroine” (Gardner). 

    The things that Blanche was in pursuit are no longer a possibility for her.  “She must have protection, closeness, love, safe harbor.  The only place she can obtain them any longer is in her own mind” (Kazan 24).  She makes up scenarios in her head and plays them out in front of others.  After Stanley rapes her, she sits in the bathroom alone and yells for her sister.  She tells Stella through the bathroom door, “If anyone calls while I’m bathing take the number and tell them I’ll call right back” (Williams 132).  No one is going to call Blanche as she has ruined all of her relationships, but in her mind, she will still have what she sees as a happy ending. 

    Blanche Debois had a chance to get what she really wanted in her life.  However, her past brought her to a sad end.  It seems as though every bad thing that happened to Blanche, happened because of the way she manipulated people so that they would carry out her will.  Williams suggests the idea that manipulation only leads to trouble.  If Blanche had been straightforward and honest with Mitch, Stanley would have had nothing to “dig up” on her, and Mitch would have been more receptive to her truth telling than he was to her lies and deceit.  What Blanche should have done, was taken into account the old saying, “the truth shall set you free.”  Instead, it was the untold truth that doomed Blanche.
Works Cited


Elysa Gardner. "This 'Streetcar' goes its own way." USA Today . Academic Search Premier. 8 December 2006. http://search.ebscohost.com.


Kazan, Elia.  “Notebook for A Streetcar Named Desire.”  Twentieth Century Interpretations of A Streetcar Named Desire.  Ed. Jordan Y. Miller.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Trade, 1972.  21-27.


Lant, Kathleen M.  “A Streetcar Named Misogyny.”  Violence in Drama.  Ed. James Redmond.  Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991.


Londrè, Felicia H.  “A Streetcar Running Fifty Years.”  The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams.  Ed. Matthew C. Roudanè.  Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 45-63.


Williams, Tennessee.  A Streetcar Named Desire.  1947.  NY: Signet, 1975.



Rationale

INTASC Standards

Home