The play “A
Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams, is about Blanche who is a white
woman that holds herself to be very prim and proper. She visits New Orleans in
the beginning of the play to see her sister, Stella. Over the course of the
play, we see Blanche getting caught up in her lies and stories as Stanley,
Stella’s husband, discovers that she is sleeping with several men in the
previous town she resided in. This made her not as pure as she makes herself out
to be. At the end of the play, Stanley rapes Blanche which sends her over the
edge and causes Stella to place her in a mental asylum because she is now
considered to be insane.
The
formal definition of the word “insanity” in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is
the “severely
disordered state of the mind usually occurring as a specific disorder” or the “unsoundness
of mind or lack of the ability to understand that prevents one from having the
mental capacity required by law to enter into a particular relationship,
status, or transaction or that releases one from criminal or civil
responsibility”. However, these definitions do not take into consideration the
cultural context of what is or isn’t considered to be insane. These two
definitions are purely looking at the word from a psychological angle. It does
not take into account how societal norms can force someone to go crazy. This
leads into the bigger question of whether Blanche is truly insane or are the
demands of society on Blanche insane.
The play took place in
the 1940’s in the South which meant that there are many societal pressures
placed on women. For Blanche, this meant that she has to be a Southern Belle,
but at the same time, she also has to work to provide for herself because most of
her family were gone and society was a little more accepting of women working.
This provided contrasting ideas to women because on the one hand they have to
be feminine and soft spoken, but on the flip side they have to be somewhat
strong and independent. To add on to this stress, Blanche is previously married
to a man who turns out to be homosexual which impacts her. This is because of
the idea that she could’ve done something wrong to make him go the other way or
it makes her feel like she wasn’t enough for him when in reality that’s
just how he is and there was nothing she could’ve done differently to change
that fact.
In this way, Blanche’s
response to the world she lives in is reasonable and the world around her is
unreasonable. She is not insane because she doesn’t fit into the medical
definition of having a specific disorder or a lack of ability to understand.
The expectations that society has for her is simply unreasonable and
contradicting in its nature which made it difficult to balance being a woman
and being a working woman. Blanche just simply had too much pressure placed on
her that she eventually broke and didn’t want to fit into a perfect mold
anymore. It could be said that she had such a heightened awareness of how
society works that when she was raped, she didn’t want to follow those rules anymore
so she was considered insane by society.
Your argument is very sound and well thought out. Your points about societal standards were well integrated and it never felt as though you were repeating yourself. Although there were a few minor grammatical and structural problems near the beginning by the end they had been mostly smoothed out. This post did a very good job of convincing me that Blanche is not insane.
ReplyDeleteYou supported your arguments with many points, which are persuasive. But it would be better if you expand on these points somehow. I expect you to specifically describe some "Blanche’s response to the world" for some of your ideas. In addition, more citation would be helpful. For example, you could cite "women should entertain man" from Blanche to support your claim that Blanche "had such a heightened awareness of how society works".
ReplyDelete(from Vivian, who had trouble posting here): I like your flow of the argument which is convincing. You explain well what's lack of the definition of "insanity" in the dictionary; however, I think it might be better if you can use more historical or textual evidences to support your point that it's the society which makes Blanche insane. I feel that the thesis statement in your last paragraph also needs more explanation. You mentioned that Blanche is not insane because she has the basic ability to understand. It would be better if you can list some evidences that prove this point.
ReplyDelete