The Inevitable Mental Breakdown of Blanche Dubois- Paper 1

In the play “A Streetcar named Desire” by Tennessee Williams the character Blanche Dubois lived a very tragic and taboo life before moving in with her sister Stella. Due to these experiences back home in Laurel, Mississippi she decided to put on a front to everyone once she’s moved in with her sister. It is very understandable why she chose to start off this way because in the time setting of this play to tell anyone of what she did would have made her a social pariah. The issue with Blanche is that her lies began as a way to save face, but soon transformed into a world of delusion and fantasy she puts herself into to escape from the reality she’s now living in. Both Stella (inadvertently) and Stanley play a tremendous part in the inevitable breakdown that Blanche goes through with Stella as an enabler of illusion, Stanley’s rape and his constant clashing with her illusions. Blanche’s psyche was destroyed with her husband's suicide and her downfall mentally was set in stone once she stepped foot in New Orleans due to her decision to try to keep up appearances once moving in with Stella.


Take a look at Blanche before the play even started. After her husband’s death and the loss of Belle Reve she’s said to have become a prostitute working out of a motel and is said to have had an affair with a teenage student. Stanley tells Stella this once he finds out from a coworker of his who used to travel to Laurel.

"She moved to the Flamingo! A second class hotel which has the advantage of not interfering in the private social life of the personalities there! The Flamingo is used to all kinds of goings-on. But even the management of the Flamingo was impressed by Dame Blanche!. . . She's not going back to teach school! . . . They locked her out of that high school before the spring term ended- -and I hate to tell you the reason that step was taken! A seventeen-year-old boy--she'd gotten mixed up with!" (Williams 107/108)

She was obviously broken emotionally after what had happened to her. Her husband being gay left her longing for the feeling of being wanted, so her many expenditures into the Flamingo filled that void. Though living in a harsh setting she was still living in reality she was not held by delusion at this point. To live that life she could not have deluded herself into believing she was still a rich southern belle, she may have deceived the men she got with  but never herself. Now comparing this Blanche to the person she tries to present herself as to her sister and Stanley.


First we must see how Blanche perceives herself. The famous sociologist Charles Horton Cooley came up with the theory of the Looking-Glass self on how people perceive themselves based on society, and psychologist Michael L. Schwalbe related Cooley’s theory to mental illness in his paper “Beyond the looking glass self.” Cooley’s theory states that our “self evaluations are affected by the evaluation which others have on us, and more importantly by how we perceive those evaluations” (Schwalbe 1). His theory has three parts 1) How you believe others see your appearance , 2) What you imagine their judgments are of your appearance, 3) The self we then develop based on these judgments. Taking this into account with Blanche. Once she enters Stella’s home she is dressed up to the nines because she believes that by presenting herself this way it will make them see her as if she is still rich and classy.Yet she still ask Stella to off the light because she is afraid of what she thinks Stella will see and the judgments she’ll make. Blanche still saw herself as the people who drove her out of town in Laurel saw her. Blanche says to Stella “ turn that over-light off! Turn that off! I won't be looked at in this merciless glare! ”(Williams 8). Stella complies with this and other request of Blanches. This is where the breakdown of Blanche's mental begins and Stella’s faults are shown. Throughout the play Stella was constantly complying with Blanche’s wants and was always trying to flatter her or convincing Stanley to compliment her because “That's important to Blanche.Her little weakness” (Williams 24)

Due to the fact that Stella kept giving Blanche the idea that she’s desirable Blanche actually starts to believe it and falls into the delusion. Mitch also has a part in this because his interest in Blanche boosted her self-perception, Blanche is now looking in the “mirror” and seeing herself as she believes her sister and Mitch see her, the elegant southern bell that lived in Belle Reve. Stella was enabling her sister to continue living in this fantasy world, and keeping her from actually seeing reality for what it is. This is where her delusions start to get ahold of her. She begins to hears the polka music from her husband's death whenever the past is brought up or she’s feeling emotional. For example when speaking to Mitch she says, “. . . in the middle of the dance the boy I had married broke away from me and ran out of the casino. A few moments later--a shot! [The polka stops abruptly.] ” (Williams 103). To understand Stella's part in Blanche's mental breakdown we can look at the research paper “Normalizing Symptoms: Neither Labeling nor Enabling” by Thomas Scheff who speaks on the theory of Labeling/Normalization. The labeling part of his theory speaks on the idea that inherently judging someone will most likely produce a bad effect on the relationship between the two individuals and how it occurs. The normalization part of the theory speaks on how the act of ignoring something or pretending that nothing is wrong will only worsen whatever your issue is. Stella is the normalization of Blanche's downfall her reluctance to actually find out what’s going on in her sister's life leaving Blanche to a world of fantasy, and Stanley to be the person who challenges her illusions. Stanley is the worst person that should have interacted with Blanche at this point. Stanley’s brute personality makes it easier for Blanche brush off what he’s saying as just an offensive remark to get her angered. In Scheff’s paper he speaks on labeling which is the act of making “judgments of certain kinds of behavior that are virtually automatic”. Stanley accounts for the labeling in Blanche's breakdown, immediately once Blanche enters the house Stanley sees how she’s dressed and her demeanor he labeled her as stuck up and secretive so he makes it his goal to expose her truth to people. Once he has exposed her to Stella and then Mitch it breaks Blanche.

In the lead to the climax while Stanley and Stella were at the hospital giving birth Blanche had her last visit from Mitch. Her hope was that he would take her as his wife and she wouldn’t have to live with Stanley anymore, but Stanley already revealed her past to him. This was Blanche's last hope of escape and redefine herself. So when Mitch said the words, “You’re not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother” (Williams 130) it destroys her. Her image of herself is broken, Mitch the last person who could have wanted her and he just called her dirty. The “mirror” she looking into shows Mitch's judgments, her own judgments of herself, and all the remarks Stanley has been making, She goes deep into delusion and starts to talk to herself “Blanche has been drinking fairly steadily since Mitch left. . .Now she is placing the rhinestone tiara on her head before the mirror of the dressing-table and murmuring excitedly as if to a group of spectral admirers.” (Williams 131). Then Stanley's rape while she’s in this fragile state sets the final nail in the coffin. Blanche has met no men who respected her or treated her well, that feeling of being wanted after her husband's outing of being gay came and then disappeared with Mitch. Being put in the mental hospital was the best thing for Blanche at that point. The last thing she says on her way out is “Whoever you are--I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” implying at this point she knows that her only hope of interaction. Strangers, because her reputation home and now in New Orleans is horribly tarnished.


Works cited

Gecas, Viktor, and Michael L. Schwalbe. “Beyond the Looking-glass Self: Social Structure and Efficacy-based Self-esteem”. Social Psychology Quarterly 46.2 (1983): 77–88. Web…

Scheff, Thomas. "Normalizing Symptoms: Neither Labeling Nor Enabling." Ethical Human Psychology & Psychiatry 12.3 (2010): 232-237. Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. Web. 5 Mar. 2016.

Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. New York: Signet, 1974. Print. Signet classic; Signet classic.