The Butterfly That Flies To The Fire

A Streetcar Named Desire is regarded as the most successful play of Tennessee Williams. And the heroine Blanche DuBois is also one of the most representative Southern Belles in southern literature.The study of this play aims at fulfilling two tasks. The first one is to find the causes for Blanche's lunacy, and the other is to find out the social significance of her tragedy. In this play, Tennessee Williams gives us the best tool to summarize Blanche's tragic downfall, that is, her trip from New Orleans's railway station to Stella's house. Simply speaking, it is Desire—Cemeteries—Elysian Fields. In accordance with it, we will look into the life of Blanche before and after she comes to New Orleans, so as to find out both the internal and external reasons for Blanche's lunacy. Freud's theory of the structure of the mind is applied to help us investigate the struggle of Blanche's id, ego and superego; and Marxist historical materialism is used to analyze the interpersonal relations among Blanche, Stanley, Stella and Mitch. Finally, the symbols that Tennessee Williams uses to imply Blanche's destiny in the play are also analyzed.At last, we come to the conclusion that those Southern Belles, represented by Blanche DuBois, who live in the past and deny the present, will surely be denied by the reality. They either live in illusions or die sadly. More generally speaking, anyone who refuses the progress of society will certainly be eliminated by history.