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A Streetcar Named Desire: Example Answer
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An example answer to a practice question for the English Language and Literature A-Level.
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Refer to scene 5Beginning, “Well, well!” and
Ending “Ahhh! Merciii!
This interaction occurs near the end of scene 5. Blanche encounters the young man.
Referring to these lines and other parts of the play, examine how and why Williams presents
Blanche’s relation with men
Answer:
Within this scene and the wider play Williams presents Blanche’s relations with men as a product of
her desires and faults.
An example of this can be seen in Scene 5 where Blanche states ‘it would be nice to keep you, but
I’ve got to be good and keep my hands off children.’ The imperative ‘I’ve got to be good’ suggests
that Blanche is a paedophile and knows that having relationships with children is immoral. This is
contradictive to the way in which Blanche presents herself to other men within the novel as Blanche
uses her façade as an upper-class old southern woman who holds old southern values such as purity
to persuade other men into asking her to marry them. Another scene within the play in which
Williams presents Blanche’s relationship with younger men can be seen in Scene 7 where Stanley
states ‘I hate to tell you the reason that step was taken! A seventeen-year-old boy – she’d gotten
mixed up with!’ The premodifier ‘A seventeen-year-old boy’ and the exclamative ‘mixed up with!’
presents Blanche as having immoral and unsupported relationships with younger men, displaying
her as a paedophile. Williams presents Blanche’s paedophilia as being a product of her desire and
her trauma of her first husband’s death at sixteen. It is Blanche’s desire that brings her to her
downfall in the end of the play.
Another scene in which we see Williams present Blanche’s relationship with men in the play can be
seen in scene 5 where Blanche’s interaction with the young boy contradicts the way in which she
presents herself to Mitch. The imperative ‘I’ve got to be good and keep my hands off children.’ And
the imperative ‘Bow to me first! Now present them.’ contradict one another as on one hand Blanche
is having an immoral interaction with a young boy in which she uses sexual innuendos such as ‘You
make my mouth water’ and on the other hand she presents herself as a woman of virtue and purity
who holds the old southern values of gentlemanliness which is shown through the exclamative
imperatives ‘bow to me first! Now present them.’ This shows how Blanche’s presentation of herself
to Mitch is a façade which we see leads to the failure of the relationship where Mitch says, ‘You lied
to me blanche.’. A reason as to why Blanche presents herself in a fake way to Mitch is that due to
her position as a woman she is forced to rely on men for income as women could not make enough
income for themselves during the early 1900s as they were expected to marry and rely on their
husbands to take care of them. Due to Blanche’s immoral past and age however, she feels forced to
put on a façade in front of Mitch to convince him to marry her.
In addition to this, another scene in which we see Williams present Blanche’s relationship with men
can be seen in scene 4 where Blanche describes her meeting with Shep Huntleigh. The declarative
‘Texas is literally spouting gold in his pockets.’ And the exclamative ‘he could do it, he could certainly
do it! Displays Blanche as being reliant on men for money as she talks about relying on Shep
Huntleigh for income so that her and Stella can escape their current environment with Stanley. This
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