... in illusion. The crisis that leads to her disappointment and so to her illusion is her responsibility for her husband's death. Before action started, she was married to a young man, Allan, who turned to be a homosexual. At a moment of disgust, she drives him to suicide by revealing that she knows the truth about him. In Theatre Arts Magazine, Rosamond Gilda describes ... Blanche's discovery that Allan preferred sex with men as a "chattering experience when her most intimate happiness was destroyed at its source" (Jones 174). Being unable to accept her harsh reality drives her into illus...

• Word Count: 1268
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... ages. It gets revealed in the last conversation she has with Mitch that she had many intimacies with strangers after Allan's death in a hotel. "Intimacies with strangers was I seemed able to fill my empty heart with" (Williams 146). After Allan's death it was the only way she knew how to cope. She lost her job as a teacher for fraternizing with ... the paperboy at Stella's apartment. It's one of the ways that makes her feel better about herself when she wants to feel wanted and help fill that of abandonment of Allan's death. When Blanche was sixteen she found love and got married. Her h...

• Word Count: 1016
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... . The audience is left hoping that the doctor will remain kind to her. Some characters do not interact with the people in the play, but nevertheless act as strong symbols. Allan Grey was a young man with poetic aspirations whom Blanche fell in love with and married as a teenager. From the mouths of Stella and Blanche, the audiences learns that "Blanche didn ... 't just love him but worshipped the ground he walked on-, but when she discovered he was a homosexual, she announced her disgust at him in public, and he committed suicide. Allan's death, which marked the end of Blanche's sexual in...

• Word Count: 1296
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... for sex while trying to preserve her dignity, self-regard, and upper class image. Berkman attributes her lust for sex, intimacy, and romance as a result of her failed marriage with Allan. The essay then blames Blanche's troubles on her fear that eventually having sex will prevent future intimacy. Blanche believes that once she and a man have sex, he will no longer ... from which, through truth, she struggles to escape." In summation, Berkman finds Blanche to be in a continual search for the confidence and romance of a relationship, once provided by the late Allan Grey. Reality and chang...

• Word Count: 2772
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... light, all point to her attempts to mask reality and to either not see herself as she actually is, or to hide that reality from others. Blanche's early marriage to Allan Grey forecast all of her subsequent problems with relationships. Married at sixteen, she describes the relationship: "He was a boy, just a boy, when I was a very young girl. When I was sixteen, I made ... I was fool enough to believe you was straight."" (SND, p. 117). Blanche confirms the story Stanley has reported by telling Mitch "Yes, I had many intimacies with strangers. After the death of Allan "intimacies with str...

• Word Count: 2617
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... a family. Then her young husband committed suicide. "Then somebody caught my arm. "Don't go any closer! Come back! You don't want to see!" See? See what! Then I heard voices say - Allan! Allan! The Grey boy! He'd stuck the revolver into his mouth and fired - so that the back of his head had been - blown away (page 96)." After that, Blanche began her ... ...

• Word Count: 605
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... more, sort of to put the stopper on, so to speak- (123) One more reason why Blanche drinks is to try and forget her past. The death of her husband, Allan, which she blames upon herself, has always haunted her and in a weak attempt to stop thinking about it Blanche drinks. Hiding the truth through a camouflage of alcohol is much easier ... attracted to it because when she found love "it was like you suddenly turned a blinding light on something that had always been in half shadow" for her. (182) And when Allan died " the searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again...

• Word Count: 2141
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School

... materials, luxurious baths, and scents. Important facts in the play include details of Blanche's past, which help readers/viewers to better understand her present state. The fact that her husband, Allan, killed himself gives good reason behind Blanche's depression and promiscuity. Blanche stayed at a hotel in Laurel after losing Belle Reve, calledThe Flamingo?, where she is well known. After losing her ... ...

• Word Count: 1604
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... play is Eunice. "She is one of Stella's best friends, and she and her husband Steve represents the low-class carnal life that Stella has chosen for herself" (Anderson 149). Allan Grey, the man that Blanche married as a teenager represents Tennessee Williams himself because both are homosexual and both feel that homosexuality is not a good thing. The teenage newspaper collector embodies ... ...

• Word Count: 1469
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... with Mitch rests in him believing her act throughout this play. "She wants Mitch to absolve, forgive, release her from the great cruelty of her past, because like her husband Allan Grey, Blanche wants to be loved for who she is."" (Costanzo 3) (One of Blanche's many illusions is that she claims to want only illusion.) She feels that her act is ... ...

• Word Count: 977
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... , and prudent. Her name is French and she says, 'It [Dubois] means woods and Blanche means white, so the two together mean white woods. She was married to a man named Allan, who committed suicide when she was very young. She drinks and smokes and is not very trustworthy. She suffers from repeated visions of hearing polka tunes and gunshots. Blanche cannot ... ...

• Word Count: 688
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... covering it up. Later in the play Stanley "brings to light" the true facts of Blanche's life (Pg 54). Also in this story, Blanche could not forget the death of Allan, her husband who was homosexual. She mentions: "I didn't know anything except I loved him unendurably but without being able to help him or help myself. Then I found out in the worst ... ...

• Word Count: 463
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School