Examine the view that Blanche’s attitude to sex and sexuality creates conflict in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’.

Tennessee Williams’ 1947 play ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ presents the character Blanche DuBois as an aging southern belle whose confused attitude to sexuality creates inner conflict within herself. Williams employs the post-modern trop of exploring the psychology and lack of self-awareness behind Blanche’s actions: she insists to Mitch that she is ‘old fashioned’ in her views of sexuality to the point of being ‘old maid school-teacherish’, insinuating that she is virginal and modest (as per the ideal southern belle) as opposed to the promiscuous ‘Dame Blanche’, companion to lonely soldiers and frequenter of the notorious Hotel Flamingo, that the audience gradually understands her to be. Blanche desperately attempts to conceal her sexuality behind her façade of gentility, quaintly dubbing her sexual encounters as her depending ‘on the kindness of strangers’. Williams presents Blanche’s inner conflict with her sexuality (possibly mirroring his own as a homosexual man) as she struggles between her desire to be a naïve young girl who ‘rarely touch[es]’ liquor, and her human need for sexual, physical relationships. Williams’ repeated use of the word ‘old’ in Blanche’s description of her own sexuality reinforce the idea that Blanche learned her attitudes to sexuality in her crumbling mansion in the deep South, where ‘epic fornications’ led to ruin despite the family’s gentility and promotion of the idea of the pure southern belle. Williams reveals exactly midway through the play in Blanche’s famous monologue that Blanche’s dead husband Allan was a homosexual, creating conflict between him and his intolerant wife, culminating in his death. Allan’s suicide is the ultimate conflict as a result of sexuality in the play; Blanche told Allan that his sexuality ‘disgust[ed]’ her, however the ‘shot’ that ‘rang out’ when he killed himself haunts Blanche for years to come (and was too shocking to include in the 1950s film version), indicating that she regrets her adherence to 1940s homophobia and her conflict with Allan’s sexuality. Williams references tragic tradition in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ as Blanche’s ‘old fashioned’ attitudes to sex act as her hamartia, creating conflict and leading to her downfall at the end of the play, which she still attempts to cover with nicety as she cling to the Doctor’s arm as though he were a suitor.