How Is Blanche A Sympathized

Dubois shows a mixed array of actions that confuses the audience into whether she is to be sympathized or not. At the beginning of the play, the author Tennessee Williams shows us the arrogant and demanding side of Blanche, provoking the audience to dislike her, but as the play goes on, Williams gradually reveals more about Blanche’s troublesome past, making the audience sympathize her more.
Blanche arrives at the Kowalski household— Elysian Fields, dressed fancily. “She is daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and ear-rings of pearl, white gloves and hat, looking as if she were arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party in the garden district.” (p.3) This quote immediately shows us the difference between Blanch and the people from New Orleans by the type of clothes that they wear. Everything that she wears is white,
which suggests that she gives the impression of clean and angelic.
When Blanche arrives at the Kowalski Household, Stella and Stanley had been out, but Eunice kindly offers to let her in their house. Eunice starts chatting to Blanche, but she only gets short answers like ‘yes’. This shows that Blanche isn’t interested in talking to Eunice at all even though it was Eunice who had let her in. Instead of showing back kindness to Eunice, she also tells Eunice rudely bluntly in the quote “What I meant was I’d like to be left alone.” (p.5), that she would like her to leave. After Eunice leaves, Blanche spots a whisky bottle. The quote “She springs up and crosses to it, and removes a whisky bottle. She pours a half tumbler of whisky and tosses it down. She carefully replaces the bottle and washes out the tumbler at the sink.” shows us that Blanche, knowing that nothing here is her property, still intently took Stanley’s whisky. When Blanche starts talking to Stella, she
didn’t let Stella say much, instead taking over the conversation and guiding it towards herself. She loves the attention of people praising her appearance, and in the quote “ You know I haven’t put on one ounce in ten years, Stella?” (p.8) after calling Stella “as plump as a little partridge”, the audience would be quite irritated by her self-obsessed behaviour, putting herself as a priority.
Although Williams has introduced so many negative aspects of Blanche, he now introduces some events from Blanche’s past, which defends Blanche’s arrogant style. Williams shows us that most of Blanche’s actions are only due to her insecure feeling in this new place where everyone was raised in a background different from hers. We can see that Blanche’s husband’s death has a big impact on her. From the quote “ The boy – the boy died. I’m afraid I’m – I’m going to be sick!”, it shows that she is missing her husband so much that just from the mention of him she feels sick. The lost of Belle Reve and the ordeal she went through to take care of the house has also worn her out. She was left alone to deal with the house while everyone continued their lives with what they desired. In the quote “I stayed and struggled! You came to New Orleans and looked out for yourself” (p.11), it tells us exactly how she feels about being left by all the relatives without any financial support. She is deeply sincere about her anger as we can see in “Where were you. In bed with your – Polak!” (p.12)