Sympathy In A Streetcar Named Desire

Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire is provocative and goes in depth with the lives of his poor creatures. The looming theme throughout the story is the tragedy and cruelty that is experienced or caused by those in Williams’ Elysian Fields. Although I feel a general sympathy for many of the characters and their circumstances, Blanche’s hardships are clearly outlined and plentiful, leading to a deep sympathy for her. Tennessee Williams’ makes Blanche’s unwarranted, selfish and cruel nature apparent early on, but we later learn that she was not always like this. Blanche was once a sweet gentle girl who fell in “love. All at once and much, much too completely” with a man whom she believed she would live with forever; but later finds her husband has cheated on her with “an older man who had been his friend for years.” Learning that her man of complete admiration had cheated on her was enough, but that it had also been an act so shameful in their time, was too much. Blanche cannot bear it, and makes a childish decision to express her disgust in what had happened, driving the boy she loves to suicide, and leaving her with the guilt of causing (contributing) to his death. …show more content…
Blanche tries to make up for this split in her world by drinking away her flashbacks and the men of the flamingo. Instead of helping or guiding her, these men take advantage of her weakness, leading her to be required to leave the flamingo “for permanently” because of her loose