The play A Streetcar Named Desire revolves around Blanche DuBois; therefore, the main theme of the play concerns her directly. In Blanche we see the tragedy of an individual caught between two worlds - the world of the past and the world of the present - unwilling to let go of the past and unable, due to his character, to come to terms with the present. present. The end result is its destruction. This process began long before his fight with Stanley Kowalski. It all started with the death of her young husband, a weak and perverted boy who committed suicide when she provoked him with her disgust at the discovery of his perversion. In retrospect, she knows that he was the only man she ever loved, and from this initial catastrophe her promiscuity evolves. She is alone and scared and tries to combat this condition with sex. Desire fills the void when there is no love, and desire blocks the inexorable movement of death, which has already devastated and decayed Blanche's ancestral home, Belle Reve. For Blanche, Belle Reve was the only remaining symbol of a life and tradition that she knows in her heart has faded, but to which she clings with desperate tenacity. It's dated. Her speech, her manners, and her habits are shockingly outdated, but yet she cannot abandon this sense of herself as someone special, as a "lady" in the great tradition. He knows he is an anachronism in an alien world and yet he will not compromise. She cannot and will not give up the dream she has of herself, and although she desperately wants not to feel alone, it is precisely the clinging to this dream, the airs, the mannerisms and the sense of herself, that further alienate her. She is trapped in a terrifying contradiction. Her middle... middle of paper... her search for love, for the need to fill the void inside her, is the essential reason for her promiscuity. Mitch is also a victim of loneliness. Although attached to his elderly mother, he is restless and dissatisfied. He feels incomplete and longs for someone to give him a sense of completeness. He, like Blanche, had loved once and lost. In Blanche and Mitch's need for each other, and their inability to satisfy this need, they express the theme of loneliness beautifully and touchingly. Works Cited Adler, Thomas P. A Streetcar Named Desire: The Moth and the Lantern. Boston: Twayne, 1990. Miller, Jordan. Twentieth-century interpretations of a streetcar called Desire: a collection of critical essays. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1971. Williams, Tennessee. A tram called Desiderio. New York: New American Library, 1942.