The reflection of the decadent Southern Gothic society: the tragic life of

Blanche Du Bois

Throughout history, human beings have suffered changes that directly depend on

their individual and social life. These changes have always been reflected in

literature, which is why various literary movements have emerged and deeply

reflect the social phenomena that people go through depending on the context and

the place they are in. One of these movements is Romanticism, which is divided

into several genres among which we find Gothic. This one has been mostly

portrayed by the southern region of the United States and is known as Southern

Gothic; whose greater exponent was the Pulitzer Prize winner Tennessee Williams

with his most recognized play A streetcar named desire (1947). I strongly believe

this fascinating play represents Southern Gothic literature due to the exposition of

a decadent society issues through complex characters, especially Blanche DuBois,

throughout her family and social pressures and her fantasy’s inability to overcome

reality.

First, Blanche’s complex life represents the social decline of Southern Gothic

because it is a consequence of the family and social pressures of the time. In the

play, Williams (2004) recounts an idyllic past in which Blanche and her entire family

belonged to the upper class and owned the Belle Rêve plantation in Laurel,

Mississippi. Blanche’s whole life seemed perfect: her marriage, her job and her

inheritance. However, her family life is destroyed when her relatives mismanage

the family’s fortune on pleasures and become bankrupt, so she is forced to move

to New Orleans. Thus, Blanche experiences a social decline, as she goes through
the social classes struggle, loses her economic position and her reputation is

deeply affected due to her homosexual husband’s suicide. Evidently, it was those

pressures of a failing family and a decadent society focused on the appearances

that led Blanche to a shattered life and vain wish to live in her idyllic past that she

could no longer recover.

Secondly, Blanche’s life portraits the decline represented by Southern Gothic

literature through her fantasy’s inability to overcome reality, as a consequence of

her family and social failure. From everything that occurred, Blanche suffers some

psychological disorders and begins to reflect -on various occasions- an inability to

overcome reality. Blanche refuses to accept her failed Destiny, her lower social

class and all her loses. For this reason, she invents and believes her own lies,

creates a fantastic world in which everything is better than in reality and in which

she can prove her superiority. She is not capable to overcome her own tragedy.

For example, in one scene Blanche says:

“I can smell the sea air. The rest of my time I’m going to spend on the sea.

And when I die, I’m going to die on the sea. You know what I shall die of? I

shall die of eating an unwashed grape one day in the ocean. I will die with

my hand in the hand of some nice-looking ship’s doctor, a very young one

with a small blond mustache and a big silver watch”. (Williams, 2004).

Clearly, Blanche decides to leave the objective world and as seen in this scene,

definitely avoids reality, regardless of whether she was alone or in company,

Blanche refuses the fate that life and society had really given her and turns into

fantasy as a means of liberation from the decay that surrounds her.

In conclusion, through the life of the main character Blanche Du Bois in the play A

streetcar named desire, I consider that Tennessee Williams managed to portray in

a very clear way the main characteristic of the Southern Gothic literature that

showed the issues of a decadent society. Blanche’s life is a tragedy that shows

how the society of the time exerted big pressures that brought her to the edge of

madness as Blanche ended up with a series of psychological disorders in which

fantasy was the only solution to all her family and social failures. As a result of the

loss of her family inheritance due to her relative’s mismanagement, her reputation

and her upper social class, Blanche’s life went from a marvel to a complete failure,

to facing economic scarcity and finding her liberation in the tension between

realistic and supernatural elements: fantasy. All of this was a consequence of the

social decay that Williams, so brilliantly, exposed in this Southern Gothic

masterpiece.

References

 Williams, T. (2004) A Streetcar named desire. New Directions Paperbook.