A Paradoxical Study Of Blanche In A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire is considered to be the most successful play that Tennessee Williams ever wrote and Blanche the most successful female character he ever created. As a static stereotype in most prevailing criticism, Blanche is a passive victim under the double oppression from patriarchal system and industrial society. Since failing to adapt herself to the changing world, Blanche retreats in her illusion against the harsh reality but her inactive efforts finally send her to madness. However, with much evidence in and out the play, it is reasonable to interpret Blanche otherwise. She is apparently a roles-player to her audiences, but under the outer lies and conceits and tricks dose she tell her truth with the psychological realism; she is apparently imaginative, but her delusive imagination presents a disillusioned reality; she is apparently mad, but her outer madness reflects her inner reason. In Blanche's case, the lies, imagination and madness are all the disguises in appearance which open a window for the reader to take a view at a real existence of the human beings and the world they live. Based on this concept, I have devoted myself to analyzing these paradoxes of Blanche and attempted to find the realness from the unreal disguises in association with the psychoanalysis of Lacan and feminism theory.