The Characters and Madness in “a Streetcar Named Desire”

In Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire” madness continues to get progressively worse in the lives of the main characters Stanly, Stella, and Blanche. Because of low self esteem and her delusional thought process Blanche is most affected by the madness. Blanche’s delusional life style leads her to compulsively lie, live a promiscuous life style, and alcoholism. Blanche tries constantly to deal with her own madness, but her delusional mental state is constantly effect by the people around her. Although she causes most of the problems in her life some of her madness is justifiable. By the end of the play Blanche can no longer fight off the madness and is sent to an insane asylum. Even though most of the madness that occurs in this play is because of Blanche she is not the only one that it affect, and by the end of the play madness has affected everyone. To help boost her self esteem Blanche has sex, lies constantly, and drinks throughout the play. Before coming to Elysian Fields Blanche finds her husband in bed with another man, which leads him to committing suicide. This causes her to feel lonely and unwanted, and helps lead to her promiscuous lifestyle.

Blanche’s promiscuity leads to her getting fired from teaching for fooling around with one of her students, she also flirts with the mailman, and falls for Mitch who has little to offer her. While dating Mitch, Blanche even hits on the paperboy. To help boost her self esteem and gain the attention of men Blanche dresses in cheep provocative clothing. Blanche justifies her promiscuous lifestyle because she is getting older and feels her looks are starting to diminish. A poor self image in combination with the loss of her husband makes Blanche feel ugly and unwanted. Blanche dresses provocatively and flirts with younger men to help her with the thoughts of being old and ugly. This solution does not work and is only satisfies Blanche momentarily, and only lasts as long as she is in the