There is
an old saying that states, “Ignorance is bliss.” In the play, A Streetcar Named
Desire” by Tennessee Williams, there is a dramatic climax in the last few
scenes of the writing. Stanley, brute husband of Stella, rapes Stella’s sister,
Blanche, and worsens her pre-existing mental health issues. William’s describes
this scene when he writes, “I couldn’t go on believing her story and live with
Stanley” (Stella, 1232). It can be seen that when Stanley confronted Blanche
after returning drunk from the hospital, he raped her before the night was
over. Stella ultimately had her sister committed to a nearby mental
institution, in order to keep the façade alive that her marriage to Stanley did
not have faults. She did not want to face the fact that she may not be married
to a good man, so she wanted to stay as in-the-dark on the subject as possible.
The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and
acceptance. Stella is stuck somewhere in both denial and acceptance with the
different situations that have happened. She denies the fact that Stanley raped
her sister in order to keep living with the father of her newborn child. She
refuses to accept any proof there may have been that Blanche was raped because
she feels she could live a happier life with Stanley than she could with her
sister. On the other hand, Stella has accepted that her sister needs
professional mental health care, regardless of if Stanley raped her or not.
Those who live in illusions, like those who suffer from alcoholism, not only
hurt themselves by not recognizing their problem, but also the people who love
them.
Those who suffer from alcoholism often
deny that they have an issue, and sometimes never fully accept that they need
to get professional help. The way Blanche approaches her mental health issues
is very similar to the way some alcoholics approach theirs. In scene nine,
Blanche speaks about the music she hears in her head when she says, “The
‘Varsouviana’! The polka tune they were playing when Allen- wait! There now,
the shot! It always stops after that. Yes, now it’s stopped” (1222). She then
goes on to almost shoo the music out of her mind once the flashback is over,
and gets back to speaking to Mitch. She does not see anything wrong with her
being the only person to hear said music, or how wrong she is for telling Mitch
that she lied to him about herself and her life. Blanche states, “I don’t want
realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I
misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth.”
(1223-1224). She thinks that outright lying to people, even those she claims to
care for, is better than telling them the facts about herself or a situation. She
is a little delusion thinking that it is her responsibility to twist the facts
of a situation to the way she thinks they should be. Equally important, Blanche
still can’t see how she may have mental health issues even towards the very end
of the play. When the doctor and matron come to bring her to the psychiatric
institution, she threw a fit, so much so that the matron suggested using a
straightjacket on her. Blanche chases the illusion of her beauty and fleeting
youth all throughout the play. The only way the doctor could convince her to go
with them was to play on her desire to be accepted and/or complimented by a
successful man.
Stella can also be seen as living in
an illusion, or at least wanting to, throughout the play. It is seen in the
very first scene that the first encounter between Stanley and Stella is one
with sexual innuendos, showing immediately what their relationship relies on.
Stella, along with her older sister, grew up in a wealthy family and was around
a certain kind of sophisticated people. However, this all changed when Stella
met and married Stanley, a child of Polish immigrants. They then moved into a
dingy, close-quartered apartment in New Orleans, which Blanche critiques
right-off-the-bat. When Stanley drunkenly hit Stella and then begged and
screamed for her forgiveness, both acts can be seen as very animalistic. The
way he used his strength to take his anger out on his wife showed how
simple-minded and apathetic he really is. Then, the way he fell to his knees
screaming for her forgiveness portrayed a very animalistic way of behaving.
Even after Stella hears about Blanche’s rape, she does what she can to keep her
abusive marriage together. She takes her husband’s side, over her sister’s,
because they have a very strong sexual relationship and dynamic that she is
afraid to mix up. As a new mother with little to no money to her name, Stella
is afraid to leave her situation because she simply does not have other options.
Her husband’s strong sexual desires can be seen, also, at the very end of the
play. Even while Stella is hysterically crying over her sister being taken by
the psychiatrist, Stanley makes advances towards her that are obviously not
what she wants given the situation. He states, “Stella? Now, honey. Now, love.
Now, now, love. Now, now, love, Now, love” (1238) as he is opening her blouse.
This just shows Stanley’s only way of trying to comfort his wife involves a
type of sexual advance, and not any act of real comfort or safety.
Stella and Blanche can both be
compared heavily to an alcoholic. While Stella recognizes her issue and does
nothing to fix it, Blanche does not even see that she has underlying issues
aside from her vanity. Both sisters deal with both internal and external
struggles, but in different ways. Blanche creates external struggles for
herself because of her internal thoughts and issues. While Stella has conflicts
within herself because of the way she is treated by her husband and sister. Blanche
is now receiving professional help for her illnesses, like some alcoholics do, but
Stella is going on in her daily life denying that she has any real issues worth
standing up for herself for.
Booth,
Alison & Kelly J. Mays. The Norton Introduction to Literature, 10th
Ed. 2010.
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