“Blanche: How in hell do you think all that sickness and dying was paid for? Death is expensive, Miss Stella!”
She describes death in quite a lot of detail in this speech; it is showing that death is going to become an important topic in this play. A lot of the deaths seem to be because of the men and their gambling and this could be a view of Williams’.-
“Blanche: Honey-that’s how it slipped through my fingers! Which of them left us a fortune?”
In “A Streetcar Named Desire” a lot of the times when death is being discussed, sex seems to come into the conversation to. There is a strange relation between sex and death here. –
“I let the place go? Where were you. In bed with your-Polak!”
This is not the strongest reference to death and sex combined although it is a slight one. A much stronger one is Blanche’s speech about her late husband-
“Blanche: Then I found out in the worst of all possible ways. By coming suddenly into a room that I though was empty-which wasn’t empty, but had two people in it….”
“Blanche: He’d stuck the revolver into his mouth, and fired-so that the back of his head had been-blown away!”
Seeing her husband have sex with another man and then blow his head off within the time span of two hours causes a strange equation and connection between sex and death. The way he killed himself could also be perceived as a homosexual reference – sticking the gun in his mouth.
“A vendor comes around the corner. She is a blind MEXICAN WOMAN in a dark shawl, carrying bunches of those gaudy tin flowers that lower class Mexicans display at funerals and other festive occasions.”
Here, the woman carrying the funeral flowers is symbolising two things - Death and Blanche. It is ambiguous whether or not any of the other characters can see or are aware of the presence of the Mexican woman except from Blanche. Blanche’s thoughts seem to be provoked by the Mexican woman and it almost seems as if the Mexican woman is a representation of Blanche herself, and the Mexican woman is walking around celebrating death which shows the death within Blanche’s past and presence.
“Mexican Woman: Corones para los muertos. Corones……
Blanche: Legacies! Huh….And other things such as blood-stained pillow-slips”
You can really see Blanche going mad in this scene as she is almost talking to herself rather than to Mitch and this symbolises the dying of Blanche’s mind. She also has fragmented speech patterns here and if talking about incoherent memories that only she can really understand. -
“Blanche: -and on the way back they would all stagger on to my lawn and call-“Blanche! Blanche!” – The deaf old lady remaining suspected nothing. But sometimes I slipped outside to answer their calls…….Later the paddy-wagon would gather them up like daisies….the long way home….”
Another view on death Tennesse Williams uses is the death of Belle Reve. Shown using Blanche and Stanley, there is a clash between two worlds and the Belle Reve world is dying communicated by Stanley taking power of Blanche and bringing her into their world and getting rid of her airs and graces. He breaks her and makes her realise that her old way of living is dead and that she has to enter the real world.
“In A Streetcar Named Desire the conflict between two ways of life is concentrated within the battle between Blanche and Stanley. The old civilisation vested in Blanche is demonstrably decadent; her only means of survival in the modern world is to batten onto someone else and live off their emotional, physical and material resources, like a decorative fungus.” (Commentary).
“Blanche: I will die – with my hand in the hand of some nice-looking ship’s doctor, a very young one with a small blond moustache and a big silver watch.”
“Blanche: And I’ll be buried at sea sewn up in a clean white sack and dropped overboard-at noon-in the blaze of summer-and into an ocean as blue as (chimes again) my first lover’s eyes.”
Blanche brings the equation of sex and death together again here as she is planning of dieing with a man by her side. This speech made by Blanche nearing the end of the play also has a slight reference to Othelia in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”. Othelia died in water and that is what Blanche is dreaming about doing. –
“Queen: One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,
So fast they follow. Your sister’s drown’d, Laertes.
Laer: Drown’d? O, where?” (Hamlet)
In conclusion Tennesse Williams uses a lot of different views on death, the connection between sex, the death of other things except people like the death of Belle Reve and Blanche’s mind, and the death of people who happen to all be someone in Blanche’s Past. Williams uses different angles to express the theme of death, symbolism of the death of Belle Reve, the Mexican woman symbolising the death of Blanche’s mind, and the outward talking of real death of people. This makes it an important topic as it depicted in so many ways. Death is defiantly in the running for Tennesse Williams’ best theme in “A Streetcar Named Desire”.
