Blanche?

One question to ask is: "Is Blanche a tragic victim or an immoral woman who deserves her fate?" Don't be too quick to answer this. On one side some would say that Blanche is to much of a degenerate to be taken seriously. She lies continuously and is a sexual deviate that becomes the town degenerate. She is an alcoholic and because of all this Blanche deserves what happens to her and it isn't so much a tragedy, but Williams saying this is what happens to people who don't face the truth and live in dream worlds. On the other side, a reader of the play can use Blanche's past to explain and defend her present behavior. If you appreciate what has happened to her in life, you can understand why she acts the way she does. Further she can be seen as a symbol of a decaying way of Southern life engaged in a losing battle against modern commercialism. This is part of what makes Blanche DuBois such an engaging and interesting character and a character that actresses the world over want the challenge to play. She is very complicated and the audience can feel opposing emotions about her, from compassion to disapproval.

Blanche is also the only advocate in the play of the values of civilization. She alone speaks up for the nobility of humanity, for man's achievements in the arts, for the progress made by civilization. In saying this, however, it brings up irony. It is ironic that the uplifting words in the play come from the mouth of an ex-prostitute. But she often confuses truth and illusion. Perhaps Williams may be implying that society's most illustriuos accomplishments are illusions, too, and that the brutish Stanley more accurately represents man's true nature. Blanche may then represent not what is, but what ought to be.