We fell victim to a blizzard this week. Most everything slowed down enough to give people a moment to take that rare look at themselves in clarity. This is what happens when life gives us a glimmer of extra time which usually comes suddenly and without avoidance. Time to just sit and be still without premeditated meditation. When this occurs, we have the option to reflect, then to regret or to correct.
This play is Blanche's blizzard moment, and it lasts for roughly seven months. The facts, however, are right in front of her; and she is forced to play the game so carefully with possible catastrophic results. Each move could be her last, she feels. Her only solace is found in hot baths and in alcohol. She, being as helpless has she has become, relies upon these two things so desperately.
I have been memorizing her speech to Mitch regarding her marriage to her young husband and his death. During the first few readings, I saw it differently than I do now. My opinion has also changed regarding her behavior with the young newspaper collector. (I will have to save that opinion for another blog..)
Knowing this story, as it is a classic, I never suspected that her husband may have been a continued victim of an older male predator. I know, right? Am I nuts to think this? This theory revealed itself to me as I went over and over the monologue. She says that he needed her help. I thought that this had to do with him simply being a homosexual. This fact alone would certainly place a newleywed female in a difficult state of unrest. But there is this series of lines Blanche has that really makes me question what was going on with her husband. Considering this has given me an entire new level of complexity that could be possible for this character.
I want to share this with you. Here is a section of the speech, as written by Tennessee Williams:
Blanche:
.... But I was unlucky. Deluded. There was something different about the boy, a nervousness, a softness, tenderness which wasn't like a man's although he wasn't the least bit effeminate looking--still--that thing was there... He came to me for help. I didn't know that. I didn't find out anything until after our marriage when we'd run away and come back and all I knew was I'd failed him in some mysterious way and wasn't able to give him the help he needed but couldn't speak of! He was in the quicksands clutching at me--but I wasn't holding him out, I was slipping in with him! I didn't know that. I didn't know anything except I loved him unendurable but without being able to help him or help myself."
Prior to what she says above, she tells Mitch that she was 16 years old when this happened. She goes on to say, after the above excerpt, that she discovers "the boy I married and an older man who had been his friend for years" in a room together. Mr. Williams leaves the imagery of this discovery wide open for the imagination. He gives no other details than the fact that they were in the room together.
Her husband soon ends his life because, she feels, of what she said to him regarding how she felt about her discovery. I almost feel like she truly didn't understand what what going on and has since realized her mistake. This is unbearable for her.
What do you think?
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