How does William convey Blanches anxiety in Scene 1?

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How does William convey Blanche’s anxiety in Scene 1?

When Blanche arrives in New Orleans, she is already in “shocked disbelief” by looking “at a slip of paper, then at a building, then again at the slip and again at the building”.  The use of the adjective “shocked” suggests how surprised Blanche is to see her sister live her, in contrast to where both of them lived before.  

Blanche has to come New Orleans as her family fortune and estate are gone; she lost her young husband to suicide years earlier, and from early on the play, we notice she has bad drinking problem by drinking in Stella’s house when she first arrives, which she covers up poorly by saying to herself “I’ve got to keep hold of myself.” Blanche “washes out” her glass to hide her evidence. From this point, the reader realises she has a drinking problem.

William’s uses a lot of different actions used to show Blanche’s anxiety. She is a dislocated individual from the loss of her husband and family as described her “shoulder slightly hunched and her legs pressed together… and her hands tightly clutching her purse” implies she is in complete dislocation and is shocked at where she is since Blanche comes from a high society and is not used to seeing this lower class society. Furthermore, more actions are used to show Blanche’s unease to this location. He describes her feelings through the use of actions such as “she springs up”, “she laughs nervously”, “touches her forehead shakily” and “begins to shake again with intensity”. All these actions are fundamental in this scene to convey Blanche’s anxiety as it implies her insecurity and unease in this scene.

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Other language devices William has used are dynamic, aggressive, or powerful verbs to convey her anxiety. The use of the dynamic verbs “tosses”, “springs” and “rushes” emphasises the way she is feeling and shows her nervous she is. Springing up when a she hears a cat scream implies how worried and uncomfortable Blanche is. The reader knows Blanche has a drinking problem which is conveyed through the use of the dynamic verbs: “springs up and crosses to it… pours a half tumbler of whisky and tosses it down”, the dynamics verbs ‘springs’ and ‘tosses’ implies how desperate she is to ...

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