Streetcar Named Desire
The Significance of Belle Reve
General Significance
Belle Reve - which translates in French to ‘beautiful dream’ - acts as a symbolic motif throughout the
play, representing the decline of Old America, which becomes highlighted as selfish, eccentric, and
disconnected alongside the burgeoning New America. Belle Reve explains why Blanche chooses to
create a dream, or an illusion of the Southern Belle, providing context for her mannerisms, and
prejudice that Stanley has a hatred towards, wanting only to exploit the ruins of Belle Reve, and then
eventually Blanche.
Significance to Blanche
Belle Reve, and more importantly the loss of Belle Reve, allows Blanche to
form her persona: the martyred Southern Belle. A typical Southern Belle runs
an exquisite, and illustrious household, alongside her beauty, and
extravagant personality, which makes her both the ultimate prize, but also
drain on resources for southern gentlemen. Rayben Lee suggests that ‘the
home is directly tied to the Belle,’ showing how to correctly fit her persona,
Blanche must be seen to have run an excellent house. However, the loss of
Belle Reve suggests she was a lacklustre Belle, or perhaps not one at all. To
counter this contradiction, Blanche suggests that she had been sequestered
by death, and had no other choice but to sell the beloved plantation. In many
ways, she goes farther, making herself a martyr, and shown best with her monologue in Scene 1,
saying ‘Why, the grim reaper had put up his tent on our doorstep!’ and ‘I let the place go? Where
were you?’ Blanche creates a sense that the loss of Belle Reve was the loss of herself entirely,
stating ‘I stayed and fought for it, bled for it, almost died for it!’ showing how, alongside the collapse of
Old American buildings, Old American archetypes seem to be registered derelict as well.
The loss of Belle Reve itself seems to have provoked the DuBois desire in Blanche. Williams
indicates that there is a streak of desire that is cast upon the whole family when Blanche defends the
loss to Stanley, suggesting the cause of the debts were ‘improvident grandfathers and father and
uncles and brothers exchanged the land for their epic fornications--to put it plainly!’ This suggests that
mistresses, and desire led to former DuBois’ accumulating large amounts of debt, which she, as only
a Southern Belle, could not work her way out of. The failure of her teachers’ salary to hold back the
consequences of her forebears desire, led to her herself being led by it, by sleeping with a teenager
in her highschool, to living promiscuously at The Tarantula Arms.
Blanche, and Stanley first began to directly confront one another about the loss of Belle Reve,
showing the brewing distrust from the beginning of her stay, and may explain the aversion Stanley
has from the beginning, as he sees Blanche as ‘swindling’ him. For Blanche, the contrast between the
grand Belle Reve estate she had lost via mismanagement, and the small, dingy apartment owned by
the Kowalski’s in some ways promotes her own mental instability, as she wishes to continue the
luxurious lifestyle of the Southern Belle but is significantly hindered by the complete lack of
circumstances she suffers.
