The fragile psyche of Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire"Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire lives to a certain extent an unreal existence ", according to Jonathan Briggs, book critic for the Clay County Freepress. In Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire, readers are introduced to a character named Blanche DuBois. Blanche is Stella's younger sister who has come to visit Stella and her husband Stanley in New Orleans. After their first meeting Stanley develops a strong dislike for Blanche and everything associated with her. Among the things Stanley doesn't like about Blanche are her "spoiled girl" ways and her indirect, questioning way of conversing. Stanley also believes that Blanche has swindled him and his wife out of the family mansion. According to him, she is a good-for-nothing "leech" who has become attached to her family and lives off of him. Blanche's lifelong habit of avoiding unpleasant realities leads to her breakdown, as seen in her irrational response to death, her addiction, and her inability to defend herself from Stanley's attacks. Blanche's situation with her husband is the key to her later behavior. She married quite early, at the age of sixteen, to a boy who, in her opinion, was a perfect gentleman. He was sensitive, understanding and civilized just like her, coming from an aristocratic background. She was truly in love with Allan who she considered perfect in everything. Unfortunately he was homosexual. When she caught him with an older man one evening, she said nothing, choosing instead to drink too much and allow the frustration to build up inside her. Some time later that evening, while she and Allan were dancing, she told him what she had seen and... halfway through the paper... and she had been honest with him all along. Blanche had been guilty of flirting with Stanley, as she had always flirted with men. However, being brutally raped by him ultimately broke her because he was not a stranger. He knew her, made her real, and sort of exposed her to the bright light that she hadn't been able to bear her whole life. Works cited and consulted Atkinson, Brooks. "'The tram tragedy." New York Times (December 14, 1947). Briggs, Jonathan. “The criticism corner”. Clay County Freepress December 12, 1984: 1, 25. Brownmiller, Susan. Against our will. New York: Bantam Books, 1975. Redmond, James (ed.). Violence in drama. Cambridge University Press; 1991.Williams, Tennessee. “A streetcar called Desire”. The Tennessee Williams Theater. vol. I. New York: New Directions, 1971.