Monday May 30th

Throughout the story Blanche faces many situations that causes hurt to her. I think that Blanche was the main cause of all the hurt she consumed because of the way she handled things. Throughout the story she continuously refers back to her first love, which she cannot get over, and talks about how she wants to love like that again. From this she puts every man on a petal-stool to Allen. I think this hurt her because the whole time she lies to men, especially Mitch because she wants to seem innocent and act like she has never loved before but yet she focuses on finding a love like Mitch. Blanche states that the previous men she has had encounters with have taken advantage of her but I find that hard to believe because of the way she acts throughout the story. I think that Blanche “thinks” she has been taken advantage of but in reality she was freely giving it out to other men. When it comes to Stanley, I think that Blanche takes her anger out on him that she has for other men because she is constantly trying to tare him apart and he does the same to her. I find it unusual that as much as the dislike each other Stanley rapes her but they could be her punishment in his eyes for being so mean to him and trying to tear their marriage apart.  To me this is where Blanche becomes destructed and her aftermath comes with being placed in a mental hospital.

I think that out of Stanley, Blanche, and Stella, Stella is the most likeable. I think that Stella senses something is wrong with her sister throughout the story because she is always so nice to her and gets very upset with Stanley makes a comment to try and hurt or tear her apart. I think that Stella is trying to preserve what is left of Blanche because she has a feeling that Blanche will soon be long gone- in the sense of her mind and emotions. I think that Blanche is somewhat likeable and dis-likeable. Blanch is likeable by trying to please everyone and make them happy by hearing what they want to hear- they just don’t know it is all lies. She lies to Stella about why she came to town; she lied to Mitch about her previous relationships. The way that I think Blanche is dis-likeable is how she treats others. Blanche has many friends that care for her throughout the story but she abuses the relationships because she always wants it to be about her and make her happy- she would always make Stella do what she wanted and take care of her as if she was her child but in reality Blanche should be taking care of Stella because she is pregnant and needs more help. I feel badly for Stella in the story because she is caught between two horrible people and she should be the one that goes insane. I think that Stanley is the least likeable person because he is very mean to Stella and he always makes up excuses for his actions. He in a sense takes advantage of Blanche (and punishes her by raping her- I think this because he does it out of meanness and I think that he figures he can get rid of her once he rapes her. I think that Stanley knew he would push Blanche over the edge once he raped her.

In a sense justice is served because Blanche hurt many people and lied to many people about how the type of person she was. Blanche had many people ticked to believing the lies she told and by the end they had all caught her with her and turned her into something bad which resulted in her going to the mental hospital. I don’t like all the things that happened to Blanche nor all the things that Blanche did to other people but I guess that is her punishment for all the trouble she caused. I think that by the ending the resolution is that Blanche has severely gone crazy and they are able to get her out of their house by finding a mental hospital. I think this was really hard for Stella because she feels as if Blanche has never had a chance in this world- by being left to take care of the family, her husband killing himself, loosing Mitch because she had filled his head with lies- but I think she realizes it was the only good thing to do for her sister. Blanche had completely demolished her sister’s household setting because she came to town to only visit for a few days and stayed almost 5 months.

I don’t think that Blanche should have become mentally ill due to all the heartache and problems that she caused. I think that it would have made more sense for Stanley to have gone ill because I think he was just as bad a Blanche in the story. He never really treated Stella like he should of, he focused more on bowling and playing card games, and he cheated on his wife. Though you may read this and thing that Blanche did the same thing, I think that they way Stanley went about it was at a much worse extent. Maybe both of them should have become ill but then that would have left poor ol’ Stella by herself.

Questions:

Did Stella ever find out about the rape?

Do you consider yourself to be like Stella, stuck between two people that in a sense abuse you by the way they treat you?

This story makes me think of Monsters Inc. because in the movie Randall has built a relationship with many other monster based off lies, stealing and hurting other people and in the end he is punished for it by being placed in a trailer park with a woman who beats him with a shovel and his door is shredded.

For those of you that haven’t seen this movie… here is a link that tells you about it http://www.pixar.com/featurefilms/inc/tale.html