Blanche’s Escapes

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In addition to hiding from light, Blanche often relies on alcohol to ease her troubles but does not like to reveal this dirty secret. Blanche often pretends not to know where the alcohol is or even touch the liquid. “Blanche reveals her hypocrisy when she pretends to search for something to drink,” Professor of Theatre at University of Missouri-Kansas City Felicia Londré points out (80). When Stanley asks if Blanche wants a shot of whiskey, she responds with, “No, I--rarely touch it” (26). Even in the beginning of the play when Blanche first arrives, alcohol makes an appearance. “Suddenly she notices something in a half-opened closet. She springs up and crosses to it, and removes a whiskey bottle. She pours a half tumbler of whiskey and tosses it down.” (10) The amount of alcohol and the way Blanche is described while drinking the liquor shows that she is an experienced drinker and most likely an alcoholic. Getting drunk or tipsy seems to help Blanche escape to her world of magic, even if her escape is temporary.

Even though Blanche seems to be drinking throughout the whole book, Blanche also flees to the realm of sex and pleasure because she feels guilty for what happened to her husband, and she cannot fill the empty void inside her. Blanche invited men to a room at the Flamingo Hotel and had sex with them there. As the theatre professor at Smith College Leonard Berkman claims, “That is the point of Blanche’s downfall: the finding herself turned by her impulses toward the truth in intimacy back to the whore-image from which, through truth, she struggles to escape” (38). The second reason for her escape to sex is that she sought the sheer pleasure, which Blanche even hints to in the play. “Wonderful, honey. I don't like a bed that gives much,” Blanche comfortingly affirms Stella (16). Blanche does not want a bed that gives because sex would then give less pleasure. Even though she has sex with many men, her inability to feel love for people is the reason that she cannot remain in a lasting relationship with any of her victims, including Mitch. In conclusion, Blanche uses the men in her life to escape into a world of pleasure instead of her world of pain.

Because of the weight of her young husband’s death, Blanche tries to fill the emptiness inside her with darkness, alcohol, and sex. At the end of the play, Blanche is being taken away by a doctor to a mental institution, signifying her final and full escape into her world of magic. Blanche is an allegory to all people who try to use physical things to escape the world that one lives within. One cannot simply rely on the physical parts of life but rather turn to happier and even more divine parts of life that inspire people every day.

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