In “Streetcar Named Desire”, the famous playwright by Tennessee Williams, Blanche

Dubois encountered her huge mental breakdown which in the end brought her a big downfall in
her life. As she moved into her sister’s house in New Orleans, she was holding lots of hidden
facts about herself and made herself as if she was the queen in the house. This triggered
Stanley Kowalski to bust out his anger. The major cause of Blanche’s downfall is the exposure
of her lies by Stanley’s curiosity about the truth of Blanche as in scene 7 which caused her to
lose her new lover as a consequence which makes her, even more, break down.

The first significant effect on Blanche’s decline in her mental state is when Stanley
revealed Blanche’s secret about her background and her previous life to Stella and her lover,
Mitch. In scene 8, according to the stage directions during Blanche's birthday celebration,
Stanley told Stella the truth about what happened at Belle Reve, the presence of Blanche at the
Flamingo hotel, the reason why she left the school, and about her husband, he gave Blanche a
ticket back to Laurel: "Blanche tries to smile. Then she tries to laugh. Then she gives both up
and springs from the table and runs into the next room. She clutches her throat and then runs
into the bathroom." It showed her reaction to Stanley. It also illustrated the development of her
mental state as she couldn't accept the truth that she was forced to leave the house. The author
describes her action by using the word “Tried” to emphasize her awkwardness and frustration
as soon as she acknowledged the reality. She tried to stay calm when Stanley gave her a ticket,
but in the reality, her mind was in chaos. Tennessee Williams’s life had a huge influence on his
writing especially, his sister, Rose Williams who had an unsteady mentality and lived in her own
world.

Mitch’s acknowledgment of Blanche’s truth can be considered as one of the causes that
provoked her to her destruction. Even though Mitch had asked Blanche to marry him before, he
abruptly changed his mind now that her disclosure reached his ears. As soon as Mitch refused
to marry her, Blanche dramatically screamed to make him leave by saying “Get out of here
quick before I start screaming fire!” In scene 9, it can be pointed that she responded to what
Mitch said right away with her instinct while her mind started to be dysfunctional. She also
repeated saying the word “Fire!” until Mitch finally left the house. It showed that at that moment,
she couldn’t control herself, and her emotion. During the 20th century, people who were
diagnosed with mental illness are still viewed as dangerous and unpredictable people, so they
might be excluded from society. This could be the reason why Tennessee Williams plotted the
story like the way it was.

The leak of Blanche’s ugly truth in the past by Stanley Kowalski and Blanche’s
abandonment by her lover, Mitch, was the key that led Blanche to rock bottom in her life.
However hard she tried to hide who she really was, others still found out, as a result, she lost
everything including her lover which brought her to insanity. The character Blanche portrayed
the author’s older sister in his real-life which could point out the social aspect in the 1940s that
people viewed a person with mental illness as a psycho.