Q.

Examine Blanche as a victim of her own self delusion and old southern attitude and of the men who took advantage of her, abused and deceived her. The blind are leading the blind. This was Blanches observation of the situation when Stella led her out of the house where the men were gearing up for a night of Poker. Implicit in Blanches comment is the acute realisation that they are incapable of leading each other. The consequence of a blind person leading another blind person can only be disastrous. Blanches words assume almost prophetic dimension when eight scenes latter we see Blanche meeting a tragic fate. Blanches remark also unconsciously condones the dominant discourse of male supremacy which is predicated on the assumption that women are incapable of managing their own business and must be always governed by men. It is reflective of the fact that how women through systematized repression are made unwitting consenters to their own exploitation. In my paper I plan to examine if Blanche is a victim of her own delusions and old southern attitude or the society which is out and out patriarchal. In the beginning I attempt to locate Tennessee Williams , the author of the play ; in a particular political and cultural milieu which in turn would facilitate a better understanding of his work and in the second part I examine the text itself. Tennessee Williams as a gay playwright must have found himself to be a part of group that is seen as the other and frowned upon. A Street Car Named Desire was first dramatized in 1947, twenty one years before the Stonewall riots marked a break in the crystalline edifice of a certain social order which is based on the principle of compulsory heterosexuality ( Adrienne Rich ) . He was operating in a society which was dismissive of any kind of alternative sexual practices and bearer of non heterosexual gender identities. Williams play reminds one of the common ground between gay right workers and feminists. Both addresses issues related to gender identities and oppression by a dominant male heterosexual group. A Street Car Named Desire can be seen as a critique of a patriarchal society in which compulsory heterosexual identity is the organising principle, a society in which women and bearer of non heterosexual identities find themselves at the receiving end of exploitation and oppression. In the course of the play we see how the boy who was Blanches husband is driven to suicide for throwing the reigning code of compulsory heterosexuality into question and Blanche is punished for her unbridled sexuality. The character of Blanche is introduced in the play in the very first scene itself right after the conversation among Stanley, Stella and their friends. The philistine nature of their exchange makes the sense of formality and decorum inherent in Blanches speech and manners glaringly obvious. One can notice that certain the character of Blanche is loosely based on the playwrights mother who was a Southern Belle and whose class consciousness often bordered on snobbery. Williams ensures that the audience are made aware of the fact that Stellas world into which she was initiated by her husband is different from Blanches, a fact that Blanche ceaselessly reminds Stella of. Blanche, a member of upper class aristocracy finds Stellas living conditions appalling and her husband uncouth and crass. She suffers from a sense of delusion and assumes that the superiority of her class will incite respect in Stanley

and his friends. Her assumptions proved delusional when in the third scene she insisted Stanley and his friends to keep sitting while being introduced to her and Stanley assures her that no one was going to stand up anyway. Though Stella repeatedly assured her of the blissfulness of her married life with Stanley, she assumes that Stella needs to be delivered from her current living conditions and attempts to make necessary arrangements. She goes on to say that if Stella has sufficient memory of Belle Reve , there is no way by which she can continue to live with her husband. She manages to rub Stanley in the wrong way by being contemptuous of their lack of refinement and poverty. The encounters between Stanley and Blanche shows how issues of gender and class are intricately interlinked. Experience of powerlessness in the face of Blanches criticism of his class forces Stanley to resort to physical force, which becomes a standard , one by which masculinity can be measured. We find Stanley aggressively asserting his masculinity almost as if to make up for his lack of class status and as the play progresses his actions become increasingly violent. In the third scene he throws away the radio and abuses Stella physically. In the eighth scene he smashes his dinner plate when he is made aware of his uncouth manners by Stella. In the tenth scene he commits the horrific crime of raping Blanche. The play also becomes a trenchant critique of the social set up based on the premise of class and gender stratifications. The society makes it impossible for its inhabitants to relate to human differences as equals. Struggle for power and supremacy whether in gender or class lines becomes the only available model to be followed. All the exchanges between Stanley and Blanche reinforces this idea. Both of them ceaselessly try to get the better of each other all throughout and a sense of edginess palpitates through all their exchanges. Towards the denouement of the play Stanley rapes Blanche, an act which displaces her from the precarious position that she has occupied between sanity and madness and we see her descending into lunacy. Women hating and crimes against women often becomes the recourse of the powerless. As Audrey Lorde has pointed out rape is not aggressive sexuality, it is sexualized aggression. I am not trying at all to obscure the heinous nature of Stanleys crime. The crux of my argument is that any kind of stratification based on gender or class debilitates a society from reaching its full potential. Blanches aggressive assertion of her class superiority in a way becomes the cause of her undoing. The implication here is not that rape was the just punishment for her snobbery. The point that I am trying to drive home is that unless people are allowed to relate to each other on equal terms the consequences will always be disastrous. The play can also be seen as an enactment of male power over female. In the play masculine and feminine serve as broad and convenient designations for the kind of certain spaces and activities represented in the play. The line dividing them is strictly spelt out in definite terms and guardians of patriarchy like Stanley ensures that there is no blurring of boundaries. Stanley does not allow Blanche to participate in the male sport of Poker and asks her to sit in Eunices apartment with the women instead. Stanley refuses outright to lend a hand to Stella in the feminine task of clearing the plates and responds almost violently by breaking his plate. We find Blanche constantly seeking refuse in the bathroom as if almost to escape the ravages of the patriarchal society. The bathroom almost comes to stand for a feminine space for Blanche offering a sense of security and privacy, no matter how illusory . Stanleys peremptorily asking Blanche to Get OUT of the Bathroom ! is

symbolic of him violating her space and foreshadows the act of rape. Even earlier also Stanley intrudes into her privacy by going through her belongings without her prior approval. One can notice how Blanche is persecuted by the very embodiment of aggressive masculinity that is Stanley. Blanche can also be seen as a victim of circumstances to a certain extent. Her relationship with the boy which culminated into a tragedy shaped the contours of her following relationships with other men. She is utterly convinced of the fact that the onus of the boys suicide lies with her and this becomes the cause of her neurotic state. All her liaisons with strangers can be seen as a frantic attempt on her part to fill in the void left by her husbands death. After a string of meaningless affairs with strangers Blanche attempts to convince Mitch to marry her in her desperate bid to sustain herself financially after being shown the door by Stanley. She follows the time tested strategy of playing the part of chaste and respectable lady to win Stanleys heart. But her strategies turn out to be futile when Stanley discovers the details of her infamous past and tells Mitch. Through the character of Mitch the playwright is exposing the hypocrisy inherent in the patriarchal setup. After coming to know about the facts about Blanches tumultuous past Mitch refuses to marry Blanche point blank stating that she is not clean enough to be taken to the house where his mother lives. But the knowledge of her debauched past does not stop him from asking her for sexual favours. In the final scene we witness Blanches descend into lunacy after being raped by Stanley. We find Stella in a state of denial who refuses to accept the fact that her husband is the perpetrator of the crime against her sister. Such is the tragedy of the male dominated social set up that it debilitates women to help other women and makes it impossible for them to form meaningful associations among each other. We find Blanche been packed off to a mental asylum while Stanley goes on leading his normal life. To sum up Blanche is as much a victim of her own delusions and southern attitude as she is of the men who took advantage of her.