Streetcar Named Desire Women

A main theme in the play A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is how the women are treated in their marriages and in society. The story focuses on two sisters, Blanch DuBois and Stella Kowalski and their relationship with each other and their respective partners; Mitch and Stanley. Blanche is the older sister of Stella, who was a high school English teacher in Laurel, Mississippi, before she was forced to leave her job. Around the age of thirty, Blanche is an already fragile woman who has come to live with her sister after losing Belle Reve, their family home. Blanche is a very sexual woman and has had many lovers in the past but puts on an act of a woman who has never known the indignity. It is thought that her promiscuity is why she lost her teaching job. Blanche avoids reality and seems to
live in her own imaginary world.
As the play progresses on, Blanche’s instability on seems to increase with her misfortunes along the way. Stanley, the husband of Stella, finds out the details of her past and reveals them to Mitch, destroying her relationship with him because of his influence. Having to deal with extreme loss in the past, her fiancé had killed herself in front of her, Blanche is devastated when Mitch decides to leave her. Stanley also destroys what is left of Blanche’s sanity when he rapes her and haves her committed to an insane asylum. Stanley is a major catalyst in Blanche’s own self destruction but the main cause of her breakdown is that her sister Stella doesn’t believe her when she tells her she has been raped. Completely co-dependent on her husband Stanley, Stella is unable to believe that he committed such a heinous act even though he has repeatedly abused her. Blanche was reliant on the men in her life for her happiness. She bases her sense of self-esteem on male admiration. By marrying Mitch, Blanche hoped to escape her poverty and the bad reputation from her past that haunts her. Blanche is hoping for an unrealistic, chivalric,
man to save her from her troubles and bring her happiness. Blanche is a static character she doesn’t change in the story, the only major revelation in her story is her being committed, but given her mental state in the beginning of the story it didn’t take a large catalyst to cause her breakdown.
Blanche is a common archetype in literature; the woman in distress who is looking for a man to rescue her. All of her misfortunes can’t be blamed on those around her, Blanche does play a role in her demise, but the unsupportive, and manipulative nature of those around her only further negate her situation.