Why money wouldn’t solve Blanche’s problem

When we discussed Tennessee Williams's A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE a phrase launched out of the blue did remain more or less unresponded. But, ‘The hell - give her some money and her problem is solved!’ stayed in my mind because something felt wrong about it. I didn’t know exactly what it was at that time and it did take some thinking to get to it. Therefore only now, with much delay, a comment on this phrase.
When Blanche arrives at New Orleans to officially visit her sister and brother-in-law she never met before, sisterly love is not the only reason. As the reader learns soon, she’s pretty much broke. So money seems indeed the appropriate solution to get her out of her misfortune. But during the play it becomes clear that she did gamble away her opportunities to earn her living on several occasions. So what would make her change suddenly this attitude provided she gets a bucket full of money? To my opinion her misery is not coming from the absence of money but rather other difficulties.
But let’s take point by point about what’s going wrong:

1. Her marriage: According to the social model at the time Blanche (and Stella alike) was raised, a marriage would be the source of supply for a woman. Blanche embraces entirely that model. But by her (understandable and forgivable) choice of a 16 year old girl for an instant heartthrob and her (not excusable) own behaviour she loses this save harbour.
2. The plantation and mansion: She was neither brought up nor trained to take up the challenge of leading an agricultural exploitation and, as I suspect, she was also not willing to assume this task. The moment Blanche has to take over responsibilities, the farm is already declining, and Blanche is certainly not the person who provides the strong hand needed to bring it back onto the right track in those changing times.
   Nevertheless, the exploitation would have been an occasion to make one’s living. So yes, she could have made a living from this opportunity but she was the wrong person in the wrong place.
3. Her job: Blanche had to give up her job as teacher in consequence of inappropriate behaviour towards a student. There are several aspects to take into account: a) As she was earning at that point her own money this relationship is not at all supposed to become a source of supply (a pupil would neither be able to). Blanche is in quest for recognition and additionally these not-anymore-boy-but-not-yet-man teenagers correspond certainly also to her wistful and romantic idea about beauty. It’s worth a thought how much the need for recognition also applies when it comes to the soldiers getting in and out of Blanche’s house on a later stage. b) But recognition is not the only point. Getting close with a pupil always involves power and abuse of power. We do not know exactly what happened at that time, but the “pull/ push game” with the paperboy seems to provide the pattern or at least another example how Blanche introduces power in relations. To my opinion there is even more to it: Such a conduct does not express desire for a man, but is a defiant and stubborn statement “I can get what I want”. Having money would never ever change that behaviour.
4. Mitch: Marrying Mitch would solve her sourcing problem, at least officially. Her irritating behaviour towards him and her past, about which Mitch learns from Stanley, convince Mitch that she would not be the kind of person he would like to live with. Blanche can not change her past, but what makes her behave that awkwardly? To my opinion Blanche is denying a number of realities: The ‘southern society’ in which she grew up is gone and charming a gentlemen follows now different rules (1st, change of time and place). Although Mitch is certainly sensitive and delighted for a moment to be treated like a gentlemen from the old times (notwithstanding the fact that a woman is interested in him), he would soon be the old himself: a working class man with his down to earth character, who does not appreciate to be manipulated (2nd, disregard of the other person’s background and character). Last but not least Blanche tries to conquer Mitch and make him marrying her by bending reality to her advantage. Again she projects an image, which corresponds more to what she wishes to be instead to who she is (3rd, lying to herself). To put it in a nutshell: Blanche sees the changes in the world around her but is not able to adapt her behaviour to it.

No job, the plantation and mansion „Belle Reve“ gone, no man anymore willing to take her in, she’s literally out on the road with nowhere else to go. Trying to take her faith in hand (approaching the possibility of a marriage with Mitch) she is herself jeopardizing all attempts to save her. Trapped between two worlds, she is not able to let go the old and to arrive in the new one. A tragic figure.

YES, money would solve her problem to have a basis for living, but is this her real problem? So NO, money wouldn’t solve her problem of not being apt to live in the world as it is.

Maren

PS: Hope it is not too disturbing to have a personal comment added as a post - it was just too long for a comment and therefore technically not accepted...

Tennessee Williams: A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

The discussion of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE drew a gratifyingly large gathering for August: Caroline, Emma-Jane, Helen, Kathleen (!), Maren, Phoebe, and Robin (!!!). Sadly, Kathleen's suggested Southern Comfort wasn't on the menu.

The general reaction to the play (and for once we were fairly unanimous): intrigued and full of questions. Many of us had read it in school and found that coming back to it later in life and in a non-academic environment revealed new aspects; some want to explore more Tennessee Williams. A few points:

• Indefinable protagonists – Williams allows so many possible interpretations and provides a few cunning blurred areas, like the offstage moment of Stanley's violence against Stella or the final encounter between Blanche and Stanley, that we (and directors and actors) can never come to a final decision

• Steamy, louche atmosphere – thumbs up!

• Actors! Many points tied in with this: the iconic young Marlon Brando; what contemporary actor do we see playing Stanley today?; usefulness of imagining the play through the eyes of an actor playing one of the characters and thus obliged to find a logical throughline; in a related point, what did Brando think happened between Stanley and Blanche?

• Madness: how mad is Blanche? Robin brought up some interesting historical points on the treatment of (and cultural association between) women and madness.

• Money: coarsely, Phoebe suggested that all Blanche's problems could be resolved with a little money. While this is reductive, think of how many situations or apparent decisions in the play are conditioned by money: Blanche's living intimately and grossly with death, then coming to stay (and stay, and stay …) in her brother-in-law's house, Blanche's pursuit of Mitch – even Stella's choice of Stanley as a husband and apparent decision to stay with him at the end of the play.

• "Belle Rêve": a critic once remarked that, since "rêve" is masculine, Blanche seems to have taken a more prosaic name for a plantation, Belle Rive, and applied her brand of magic to it. Maren pointed out that Belle Rêve could also be interpreted as "The Beauty Dreams" – brilliant!

Esprit d'escalier: I meant to bring this to the table, but I forgot and I'm seizing the opportunity now:

During the rehearsal of the original production of STREETCAR, producer Irene Selznick suggested a change in the rape scene:

"I felt she [Blanche] would be destroyed more completely if, after resisting, she began to respond and then he changed course and repulsed her. It would be her fatal humiliation. I would have him fling her across the stage and just stand there, laughing savagely. I thought it would make the last act more valid."

Williams thought that the concept might be "dramatically sound," but Kazan vetoed the idea.

Phoebe