Mental Health In A Streetcar Named Desire

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Mental health “includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being” (MentalHealth.gov). Our mental health is a big part of our actions and as we experience more traumatic incidents it stimulates our behavior and how we react to things in a way that can be bad or good. In the dramatic play, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, it is obvious that Blanche’s mental health has been affected by past events in her life. Blanche’s neurasthenia is her psychological way of crying out for help as she attempts to fill her empty, broken heart from the many tragic relationships she has endured in her life.

Blanche's mental health after her husband's death, and past disturbances from her life, has caused her to depend on sexual encounters …show more content…
Cardullo makes the connection that Williams hints Blanche’s past being the main effect of her life when he says, “Williams leads us to believe she had never had such a relationship with any of her relatives at Belle Reve either, nor they with one another, as the DuBois gradually exchanged the land for their “epic fornications” and the women dared not admit they had ever heard of death” (Cardullo). This is an explanation of why Blanche and Stella can’t hold out on a relationship. Blanche is constantly ruining her relationships and can’t even keep a good relationship with her sister, let alone a lover or husband. When Blanche decides to visit Stella, she already is dealing with her neurasthenia and Stanley plays with her emotions to watch her react. How Blanche copes with the death of her husband isn’t efficient to her mental state. Blanche is looking for someone to fix her heart due to the fact that she is lonely and she needed to someone to love her again and replace Allan. Blanche explains what she wants in her life when she says, “ I don’t want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth” (Williams 145). Blanche almost accomplishes her goal when she meets Mitch, but after their argument he completely dismisses her and wants nothing to do with her anymore. This is another failed relationship that will affect Blanche’s mental state. By the end of the book, visiting Stella has done nothing but make things worse for her. Stanley has made her crazy more than before she before. Bucker describes Blanche by the end of the book by saying, “...near the end of the play Blanche in a self-delusional state labels "deliberate cruelty" as the one "unforgivable" sin; repressing her behavior toward Allan..." (Bucker). Blanche has a mental breakdown in the last
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