After I had read the book “A streetcar named
desire” I was very excited to discuss with my friends the book and especially
about the characters involved. I felt very surprised that I was the only one
who saw Blanche Dubois as a victim and not as an annoying character.
Blanche Dubois was only a southern bell out of place.
She did not fit in the city.
There are many reasons why Blanche was destined
to a terrible ending. First of all, she was used to be part of the high class,
to live in comfort and to use expensive clothes. After her father died,
everything goes wrong: her sister, Stella, left the plantation and sooner than
later, Blanche loses the plantation. She was left alone.
It is important to point out that Blanche had
been married with a guy who cheated at her…with another man. So, she married a
guy, who was gay and also kill himself. How can you put yourself together after
such a traumatic situation? The only way for Blanche was to look for the
kindness of strangers. All she needed was love.
So, she tried to start from zero, living with
her sister, even though she does not fit in this new scenario with Stanley
Kowalski. They are polar opposites: Blanche is soft and delicate, in contrast
with Stanley which is a tuff man, disrespectful and sometimes violent.
Finally, she could not escape of her past: she
had many affairs (even with a 17 year old boy), she had no job, no money, she was
alone and as the cherry of the cake, Stanley raped her and destroyed her
mentally.
To sum up, I felt sorry for Blanche because she had suffered too much. She became old and for that reason she was condemned to be single. She was a wounded person, which was finally torn apart by Stanley. In my opinion, she was a high class girl out place.
To sum up, I felt sorry for Blanche because she had suffered too much. She became old and for that reason she was condemned to be single. She was a wounded person, which was finally torn apart by Stanley. In my opinion, she was a high class girl out place.
I do agree with your comment Mario, but I would like to add a new idea regarding the novel.
ResponderEliminarI would like to contribute with a new idea and a different perspective of the novel. We have seen in class that the novel is not only about a lady who evades herself from reality and lives in an ivory tower but also a woman that represents a south that is torn, destroyed and under the North's yoke.
Maybe, Tennessee Williams following the steps of Faulkner also wanted to include violence as an important aspect of his novel.
I do believe that inside the novel there's a lot of violence. Not in an explicit way with Stanley's behavior but with more subtle details.
Blanche represents a woman that has suffered from the roughness of people, being judged and pointed as not worthy enough to be introduced as a girlfriend.
Such violence drives Blanche to pretend and project an image to people of herself that is not real. She tries to fit into a society that hates lies and falseness but that is equally phony and false in the core.
I think what caused this feeling of annoyance towards Blanche was the fact that she did not try to start from scratch, as you put it. On the contrary, she wanted to continue with the extravagant and comfortable lifestyle that she had in Belle Reve. She did not want to adapt herself to her current living situation with the Kowalskis, which was very different from the one in Laurel, but she did want the others to adapt to her standards.
ResponderEliminarNevertheless, I couldn’t agree with both of you more. Blanche was indeed a victim, a victim of a dying system that didn’t let her be how she truly was. As Susana wrote, Blanche was the perfect impersonification of an hippocratic society that on the one hand appreciates honesty and integrity but on the other hand can not deal with it.
"I felt very surprised that I was the only one who saw Blanche Dubois as a victim and not as an annoying character"
ResponderEliminarI thought almost the same as you Mario, when I read the play I thought that Blanche was a very selfish character, she only thought of herself, she dominated Stella, etc, but once a saw the movie I realised that she was in fact a victim and not a common character, she suffered from a lot of things, the lost, the age, the city, the light, the rape.... she had too many things in her mind, that was impposible for her not to get mad.
impossible*
ResponderEliminarWhen I started reading the play, I couldn't feel more annoyed by Blanche, I even read all her dialogues with an "ABC1" voice, but when I finished the play I really felt sorry about her, she was only the Southern Belle, that thought that she was at home, and had everyone else as servants. But, as Pamela said, she didn't even try to change an start from zero.
ResponderEliminar