The Struggle In The Prison Of Time

The American outstanding dramatist Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) iswell-known for being good at delineating women's complex psychology in ameticulous and deepgoing way. He successfully created an impressiveprotagonist Blanche in his famous play A Streetcar Named Desire. A lot ofliterary critics and scholars at home and abroad made a significant researchon Blanche's last madness from almost every literary angle. This thesismakes a trial to use the time theory of French philosopher Henri Bergson toprobe deeply into the reasons of Blanche's madness.The thesis falls into three chapters:The first chapter analyzes Blanche's divided self. As a genteel woman,Blanche struggles in the conflicts between her pure soul and her brutal desire:she wants to maintain her purity and dignity but the death of her husband lefta big blank in her life, which pushes her to constantly date with strangers.She struggles in the vortex of the earthy desires. Besides, the contradictionbetween her fragility and her strongness also serves to show her divided self.As a result, the conscious state of Blanche is on the verge of collapse, which is a hint foreshadowing her later misplacement of time.The second chapter fully analyzes the manifestation of Blanche'smisplacement of time and its reasons. Failing to fit in with the cruel reality,Blanche desperately clings to her past brilliant instants and tries to replicateit so as to retum to the past and escape from the present. Through therecollection of Allan, she tries to pass through the wall of time to retain thebeautiful instants in her past life and make them reappear in the present.However, the past instant is not the everlasting in the flow of time but apoint in space. By trying to marry Mitch and relying upon the help fromstrangers, she wants to make them become the substitutes for Allan. Butaccording to Bergson's theory, these people can only be regarded as somedifferent points which array successively in space. They are not theeverlasting because they won't interpenetrate each other in duration. Inaddition, her brother-in-law, Stanley, is the hinder of Blanche'saccomplishment of her wishes. The failure in the battle between them drivesBlanche to her last madness and misplacement. She lapses into the muddleof time and space and also the muddle of the past and the present.The third chapter depicts Blanche's destination after her misplacement. In order to resume the liaison with her true love Allan and fill in her emptymind, Blanche constantly dates with strangers to obtain consolation. She hastragically degenerated into a notorious and promiscuous woman. However,the madness is not at all totally tragic for Blanche. The madness offersBlanche an effective outlet to let off her depression. She finds herself-respect when she losses everything. Therefore, the madness brings abouta possible opportunity for her to start a new life.