Her needs however are downplayed by Blanches role in the play. Blanche requires all of Stella's attention and all of Stanley’s as well, so much so that she really isn’t given much chance to sort through her own haphazard emotions. That is why Blanches leaving is such a big relief to Stella after all Stella admits that she, “couldn’t believe (Blanches) story and go on living with Stanley.” Blanche describes Mitch in scene three as “superior to the other (men).” This is an interesting statement in that much can be extracted about the character of Blanche by examining her motivations for this remark. Blanche finds many of the characteristics that she despises most in men when she arrives in New Orleans and meets Stanley. Blanche continually attempts to convince Stella that Stanley is not worthy of her affections, even going so far as to say that her own sisters love is nothing but “ordinary…plain…and common”(71) As if ordinary and plain were two of the most undesirable traits imaginable. Blanche, unlike Stella has set her sights upon a prince; a perfect gentleman dressed suavely who will carry her away to his majestic home and fawn over her at ever waking moment, a gentleman who will never raise his voice and always offer a compliment. Blanches last futile attempt at sanity “Mr. Shep Huntleigh” (124) who is to take her on “a cruise of the Caribbean” (124) is a mirage of these very characteristics. Blanche describes him to Stanley as, “a perfect gentleman…having great wealth, who seeks a cultivated woman, a woman of intelligence and breeding.” (126) I think Ruby Cohn, author of The Garrulous Grotesques, might have been imaging these very lines while writing, “William’s symbolic imagery is more effective when its weakness is built into the fabric of the drama, the cultural yearning of Blanche functions to evoke o...
