This play makes me upset. While I do enjoy reading it and watching clips of the movie in class, I find the patriarchal thinking and domestic abuse to be frustrating to read. I know the play was written during a different time period where these actions and thoughts were normal, however, I get frustrated with the characters as I read about them. I hope that at the end of the play, Stella is able to finally leave Stanley and his abusive tendencies and seek a new life with her sister, Blanche.
Blanche enjoys taking baths as often as she can in order to wash away her past and forget about it. In scene seven, Stanley reveals that Blanche has a long history of male lovers after the death of her husband. While Stanley is explaining …show more content…
Blanche and her late husband, Allen, were dancing to Varsouviana music the night he killed himself. Therefore, it would be easy for Blanche to associate her memories of Laurel and Allen to the Polka music. As represented in the play, the Varsouviana music plays when Blanche is recalling a memory about Allen or in scene eight, when Stanley gives her the bus ticket back to Laurel. In the stage notes, it can be seen that after Stanley gives Blanche her ticket home “The Varsouviana music steals in softly and continues playing…[Blanche] clutches her throat and then runs into the bathroom” (136). Blanche’s memories of Allen having an affair with another man seem to always return when she thinks about him. She cannot stand going back to a town in which so many objects remind her of him. Allen was more than just a husband to Blanche and losing him took its toll on her. Even Stella says, “I think Blanche didn't just love him but worshipped the ground he walked on!” (124). Blanche adored and worshiped Allen, so finding out about his afford and suicide hurt Blanche in ways she is still recovering from. The Varskouvians music reminds her that these wounds Allen left are still