‘BLANCHE sits in a chair very stiffly with her shoulders slightly hunched and her legs pressed close together…After a while the blind look goes out of her eyes…A cat screeches. She catches her breath with a startled gesture.’
The stage directions illustrate that Blanche is not of a normal disposition- she seems to be nervous and is not in her right mind. Seeing Blanche by herself is an effective way for the character to be presented: we see her as an individual entity, what she is like without the influence of other characters or the boundaries of her social morals.
Blanche has a drinking problem. Williams presents this through her actions during her isolated period on stage, and also during her conversation with Stella:
‘…talk while I look around for some liquor…No coke, honey, not with my nerves tonight!’
On the one hand, she clearly is dependant on alcohol to calm her nerves, but on the other she unflinchingly denies this, telling Stella not to ‘get worried’ as she ‘hasn’t turned into a drunkard,’ and also lies to Stanley when he ‘holds the bottle to the light to observe its depletion.’ Williams uses this conflict to present her as an unstable character.
The way Blanche addresses Stanley and other characters in the play is very indicative of Blanche as a character. The first person she converses with is Eunice, a white woman who occupies ‘the upstairs flat’ above Stella and Stanley’s. She clearly does not find it necessary to refrain from rudeness when talking to someone she believes to be of little importance to her:
‘BLANCHE: Yes…
EUNICE: A place like that must be awful hard to keep up.
BLANCHE: If you will excuse me, I’m just about to drop.
EUNICE: Sure, honey. Why don’t you set down?
BLANCHE: What I meant was I’d like to be alone.
EUNICE [offended]: Aw…’
Although Blanche makes a feeble attempt at politeness, she soon drops her well-mannered façade, showing her lack of compassion towards others. However, we later see her with other characters, and realise that she treats everyone differently, usually for her own means. In addition, this is effective as a dramatic technique, as we are shown the different sides to Blanche’s character as she communicates with different characters, and thus her multi-faceted personality.
The next person Blanche talks to in the play is her younger sister, Stella. This is an example of how Williams uses speech to present Blanche’s character. In the dialogue between her and Stella, she completely dominates the conversation:
‘BLANCHE: …I thought you would never come back to this horrible place! What am I saying? ...I meant to be nice about it and say-Oh, what a convenient location and such-Ha-a-a! …You haven’t said a word to me.
STELLA: You haven’t given me a chance to, honey!’
Blanche verges on hysterical in her incoherent speech, and at one point the way Stella glances at her is ‘a little anxious.’ She is presented as slightly eccentric, although the audience does not realise the significance of this until later in the play.
A major way in which the playwright presents Blanche is through her interaction with men, more specifically with Stanley and his friends. She is intimidated when she first meets Stanley:
‘…[drawing involuntarily back from his stare]’
She is shown to be instinctively wary of men, though she manages to control herself and speaks first. Nevertheless, she speaks very differently with Stanley than she does with Blanche, giving very short answers such as ‘yes’ and ‘in the bathroom’, and often hesitates uncomfortably: ‘I-uh-…’, ‘Why, I-live in Laurel.’ This is similar to her conversation with Eunice earlier, though here she is presented as being shy, rather than condescending in her short answers. She is obviously much more comfortable talking to Stella than anyone else, as she is the only one she refers to by a pet name, in this case ‘honey’. This is important to Blanche’s character as she is shown to be lonely- Stella is the only person Blanche has- her husband tragically committed suicide at a young age.
There are many dramatic techniques used to characterise Blanche in scene II. Firstly, she sings in the bathroom as she prepares herself, not knowing about Stanley’s temperament:
‘BLANCHE [singing in the bathroom]: “From the land of the sky blue water,
They brought a captive maid!”’
In this way, an effect of irritation is created, as her singing unwittingly adds to Stanley’s annoyance, having already been told that he has ‘a cold plate on ice’ rather than a fresh meal prepared for him as usual. The next form of characterisation of Blanche occurs slightly later, when Stanley ‘pulls open the wardrobe trunk standing in the middle of the room’ that contains Blanche’s possessions:
‘What is these here? Fox-pieces! ...Where are your white fox-pieces…And what have we here? The treasure chest of a pirate! …Where are your pearls and gold bracelets? …Here’s your plantation, or what was left of it, here!’
Stanley accuses Blanche of swindling Stella (and thus Stanley, in his opinion, due to the Napoleonic code) after finding what he thinks are expensive clothes and jewellery. They are in fact not genuine, and they are dramatic metaphors for Blanche herself. More explicitly, Blanche likes to appear richer than she really is, in a similar way to costume jewellery emulating real gold or silver.
When Stella leaves the apartment, Stanley and Blanche are left alone. Dramatic irony ensues as we know how peeved Stanley is, whereas Blanche does not and accordingly continues flirting with him:
‘She sprays him with atomizer; then playfully sprays him with it. He seizes the atomizer and slams it down on the dresser. She throws back her head and laughs.’
Stanley is now extremely aggravated, and Blanche’s ‘fishing for a compliment’ and spraying him with the atomizer makes him resort to physical action. Here, Blanche is represented as having poor perceptive skills, not heeding the warning signs that Stanley is annoyed, and the audience would probably think her foolish to continually flirt with Stanley in such a way, despite her previous lack of success with him.
At the end of scene II, Blanche laughs ‘desperate[ly]’. The playwright uses dramatic juxtaposition, following Blanche’s laugh with a ‘bellowing laugh’ from inside the apartment. Williams uses this for the effect of comparing the two different worlds, and how Blanche is beginning to feel out of control of the situation. Following the two contrasting laughs, the ‘“Blue Piano” and the hot trumpet sound louder’. This is a recurring motif in the play that occurs in times of tension or heated drama.
Scene III is set at the apartment during the ‘Poker Night’, when Stanley, Mitch, Steve and Pablo are all present. Of the first three scenes, it is in this one that there is the most tension, and the first to have physical violence in it. Blanche’s need for reassurance is presented again:
‘BLANCHE: How do I look?
STELLA: Lovely, Blanche.
BLANCHE: I feel so hot and frazzled. Wait till I powder before you open the door. Do I look done in?’
Not only is she searching for a compliment, similarly to how she did with Stanley, but Williams also aims to present her as someone very concerned with moral values and social reasoning. She does not want to be seen by the men before she powders herself: she hides behind a mask of manufactured beauty, struggling to stay attractive.
An interesting dramatic technique used by Williams in scene III; showing all the men on their own, before the arrival of the two sisters. This allows the audience to see how Stanley and his friends are in the absence of women, and also emphasises the tensions created when the two enter. Blanche has high expectations when she walks into the room:
‘BLANCHE: Please don’t get up.
STANLEY: Nobody’s going to get up, so don’t be worried.’
It is through her language that Williams presents Blanche here. Presumably, in Belle Reve and her higher class upbringing than New Orleans, when a woman walks into the room the men have to stand up. This characterisation also serves as a dramatic technique- the playwright highlights the clash of two cultures within the house. An effect of tension is created as a result.
She vies for male attention by standing in her underwear:
‘She takes off the blouse and stands in her pink silk brassiere and white skirt in the light through the portieres. The game has continued in undertones
This is another example of a contradiction within her character: earlier in the play she tells Stella to turn off the naked light bulb she is standing near, whereas now, she purposely presents herself under the full power of the light. She is presented as contradictory but also as desperate- forced to strip down to her underwear in a desperate attempt to get some male attention.
Preceding this, she meets Mitch for the first time.
