A Character Study Of Blanche from A Streetcar Named Desire

In the play A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche should be an innocent woman characterized by purity, as her name suggests. But her life after her husband's suicide was marked with indecency of female virtue, of professional ethic and of social morality, which is right the opposite to what her name suggests literally.  The question thereupon puzzles us is which one of Blanche is real?

Blanche is a woman of innate arrogance, loftiness, vanity and egoism who has lost both the public recognition as a noble and a respectable woman in her homeland.

Innocence? Arrogance and loftiness!

Her innocence was a made-on-purpose illusion in pursuit of any man that she can use to count on, and whoever fits into her  old aristocratic notion of “decency”, bringing her back to those glory days as a respectable woman. However,  what she believed to be “love” was made up of morally unacceptable and snobbish fantasy which she convince herself to be a purified sentiment of human. This is best seen when she discovers the inscription on Mitch's cigarette case. Both Blanche and Mitch somehow finds that knowing the sonnet inscripted on the case make themselves superior than others, which, Blanche perceives as the remains of her noble identity. This loftiness results in a certain arrogance that she performed over Stanley and Stanley's poker partners who knows little about poetry, arts or literature and have a rough manner.

Charming? Vanity!

Blanche doesn't have any kind of attraction throughout the play. She tries to polish her appearance by avoiding bright light, telling lies about her real age, and wrapping herself in her fanciful clothes which fulfills her vanity as being recognized as an upper-class lady with a glamorous time. Her so-called charm is a trick out of vanity as well as a trap for those men who they believe to be more educated and refined than the rough ones.

Egoism

Blanche turned on the radio the second time after it's turned off by Stanley in the first place, which reveals she was quite spoiled in her early days. This kind of egoism of a spoiled aristocrat lady should be one of the reasons why an old-fashioned lady can break the conventions to lead a loose life after her husband's suicide, the ways of which, I have to say is very unique and indecent.

If perceived in another way, Blanche is not only a character that dies as a result of her weak self-control of her desire but also a character that breaks down her little sister's family with her so-called educated mind and polite manners. She first called Stanley “ape man” in front of Stella in the presence of Stanley, then kept degrading Stanley in an all-round way, from manner, speech to recreation. Her provoking acts finally leads Stanley to take revenge to rape her with alcohol stimulation.

Blanche is not a woman, as her name suggests, of purity, but a depraved promiscuous woman that tried to cover the rotten core with polished skin, if the skin had stood still. Her rotten mind of arrogance and  loftiness leads to her blind pride for her education, profession and her vanished family background; her vanity leads to her loose life back in her homeland and the loss of her reputation; her egoism indirectly put Stanley and Stella's love in danger and finally destroyed their family.