Modern society at that time deemed alcohol to be acceptable as a form of enjoyment and pleasure. Unfortunately for Blanche, who has no ‘self-control’, society has very little ways of effectively dealing with alcoholism, so it can be said that society is partly to blame for Blanche’s addiction. Poker and ‘little card parties’ are also a ‘powder keg’, and should ‘not be played with women in the house’. Stanley and his friends strike Blanche and her superiority as ‘a pretty rough bunch’, but Blanche is ‘adaptable to circumstances’. Blanche has always had to adapt herself to strangers and to men to ‘pay for one night’s shelter’, a subtle innuendo for sleeping with them.
Blanche has ‘always depended on the kindness of strangers’, especially when ‘there is so much confusion in the world’. After Allan, her ‘young husband’, died, ‘intimacies with strangers were all (she) seemed able to fill (her) empty heart with’. The audience senses a deep pathos within Blanche, and feels sympathetic towards her for being ‘lonely’, ‘lost’ and having no ‘firm hold on her emotions’. This melancholy is only heightened by the constant playing of the ‘blue piano’, which adds to the sombre atmosphere.
Blanche spins many lies, but instead of disliking her, the audience pities her. She doesn’t’ ‘want realism’, Blanche ‘wants magic’. She spins for herself a fantasy world for her to live in, without anyone judging her. She tell ‘what ought to be the truth’, and to her that is not ‘sinful’. Tennessee Williams only believes ‘in right or wrong ways that individuals have taken, not by choice but by necessity’ so in his eyes, Blanche is not a bad person, but a victim of a ‘tortured’ society. The audience gets a true view of Blanche’s desperation to find someone to hold onto, someone who will bring her away from a place where she is ‘not wanted and where (she is) ashamed to be’. This is why she ‘want(s) Mitch badly’, he represents the last hope she has left before she becomes an ‘old maid’.
Tossed into the middle of a ‘Barnum and Bailey world’, it is difficult for Blanche to get out of the ‘trap’. All her hopes and plans come slowly come apart when Stanley ‘get(s) ideas about (her)’. Stanley Kowalski, ‘survivor of the Stone Age’, is described as everything from ‘ape-like’ to an ‘animal thing’. He never let his guard down around Blanche; he was ‘onto (her) right from the beginning’. Stanley doesn’t ‘like being swindled’; not out of his liquor or his wife’s property. He is portrayed as a ‘common’ ‘brute’ and his ‘lordly composure’ and self-superiority as a man makes him the antagonist in the play. His victimisation of Blanche is not only evident in his ‘unrefined’ speech and actions, but even in the stage directions. Often, a ‘look of panic’ will cross Blanche’s face or she will look ‘terrified’ whenever he advances to her. In scene 1, the ‘cat screech(ing)’ that makes Blanche ‘catch her breath’ represents Stanley, the predator who plays and toys with Blanche before completely shredding her sanity and sense of identity into shreds. It is the rape, though, that is the final straw and Stanley is one of the reasons why Blanche turns from psychotic to neurotic.
The characters surrounding Blanche help to create sympathy for her but making her seem out of place. Stella, her sister, is placed as a foil besides Blanche to highlight her characteristics and many flaws. Stella is also the only person Blanche has left to ‘hold onto’, which is why she felt abandoned and betrayed when Stella left Belle Reve, and even more so when Stella chooses Stanley over Blanche at the end. Had she known Blanche a bit better inside and truly understood her, it might have softened the blow towards Blanche. Stella, however, defends Blanche to Stanley on many whenever he tries to verbally attack her, and admits that ‘people like (Stanley) abused her’. Blanche needs ‘protection’ and ‘kindness’, and Stella is the only one who is ‘so good to (her)’.
The stage directions are in such a manner as to portray Blanche as the ‘victim’ and not the ‘tarantula’. There are certain differences between the play and the movie production that lay the blame more on society and Stanley than Blanche. In the play, ‘Blanche throws back her head and laughs’ while in the movie, she looks frightened. Also, in the play Blanche breaks the ‘hand mirror’, hereby trapping the true Blanche inside and allowing ‘the Other’ to take complete control. In the movie, it is Stanley that breaks the mirror, making him guilty of Blanche’s demise. All these differences serve to shift the blame away from Blanche and to emphasise her weakness and vulnerability.
Blanche manages to attract sympathy due to her past. The ‘loss of Belle Reve’ and the suicide of her ‘young husband’ makes the audience pity and feel sorry for her and put her ‘sickness’ down to ‘sorrow’. We know that Blanche was ‘tender and trusting’ when she was young, but circumstances forced her to change. She makes for a sad picture towards the end, dressed in a ‘soiled and crumpled’ ‘Mardi Gras’ outfit and a ‘rhinestone tiara’, a victim of ‘violence and anger’. Tennessee Williams ‘accuse(s)…society, as a whole, of deliberate mendacity’, it is his intention to draw attention to the fact that ‘violence and anger’ leads not only to the corruption of society, but to the corruption of the human soul as well.
