A Streetcar Named Desire

5 Pages 1287 Words

The play A street car named desire by Tennessee Williams is about a
downfall of a fading Southern Belle named Blanche Dubois. The last
scene of the play is a significant one as it sums up the whole play and
states the ending and the main issues of the play. Here Blanche is
taken into a mental asylum due to the rape that has taken place in the
previous chapter. This shows the total damage done to her by Stanley.
She becomes mental and loses touch with reality. Williams uses various
kinds of techniques like the sound effects, changes in characterization
and certain issues like being in a world dominated by men, domestic
violence and lunacy in order to make this an important scene.

At the beginning of the scene its been told that Blanche tells Stella
about the rape. Stella is placed with no choice but to not believe her
sister. At the start of the scene Stella tells Eunice, "I couldn't
believe her story and go on living with Stanley." Eunice concurs:
"Don't ever believe it. Life has got to go on. No matter what happens,
you've got to keep on going." Eunice argues that male companionship is
a womans survival in the face of social convention. She is a victim of
society just like Blanche. Knowing that she just had a baby she looks
at the future with hope and therefore refuses to believe Blanche. This
may place her to be somewhat selfish of choosing her husband over
family but in another way she may be doing this for Blanche best
interests. After Mitch threw her off, Blanche lost touch with reality,
so Stella has arranged a "rest" for Blanche at an insane asylum in the
country.

In this scene we see Blanche complete loss of touch with reality when
she says I shall die for eating an unwashed grape. Here she is
completely making up what she thinks how she should die. She is living
her dream world. The audience feels compassion towards her as they
observe how bad the rape has affected her state of mind and therefo...