MovieChat Forums > A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) Discussion > Why did Blanche continue to stay with he...

Why did Blanche continue to stay with her sister?


Why did Blanche keep staying with her sister when she hated her husband, Stanley? She started getting emotional and she was still tempted to stay with them. Stanley obviously didn't want her to stay with them and he showed that. He even bought her a bus ticket back to New Orleans so why did she stay??

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Maybe because she had no where else to go or too lazy to look for another place. All I can say is that Blanche is an idiot I was in the exact situation she was in and I left.

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Blanche had no place to go. She would have had difficulty in finding another job because she had ruined her reputation as a schoolteacher after having an affair with an underage student. There may have been other useful jobs but it's important to remember that Blanche's upbringing as a traditional southern belle equipped her for few professions. Her upbringing was designed for her to live off her wealth and marry a rich man; unfortunately, these options were closed when she lost her money. Moreover, her mental illness made everything worse.

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Good point

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I don't think she had anywhere else to go? She arrives to stay with her sister as a last resort, having burnt her bridges everywhere else.






"Your mother puts license plates in your underwear? How do you sit?!"

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Very true. Nicely put.


Rescue the damsel in distress, whip the bad guy, save the world.

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I think that her mental state and dealing with aging and the death of her husband made her desire the comfort of her sister. She said at one point that her sister always catered to her, which also explains why her sister was drawn to a guy like Stanley who needed a lot of catering to. And I think that weighed more heavily on the side of her staying than Stanley weighed on the side of her leaving. Also, Stella looked up to her and didn't spend a lot of time around her, so it would be easy for Blanche to become the glamorous figure she imagines herself to be.

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Right and the major point in the play is, Blanche is finished. It's the old south versus the new, and the old isn't able to fight the influx of the new south any longer.

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she was broke and alone

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She says very plainly to Stella that she's played out. She has spent a long time at the mercy of dying relatives who are busy spending their last hours squabbling; she was swamped with the financial disaster of Belle Reve. With both catastrophes, she had little to no help. Her own emotional imbalance, stemming at least from her husband's suicide, has made inroads into her capacity to deal with the world. This has, indeed, led her to burn her bridges. She is probably terrified of being alone for any great length of time: there are nightmares lodged in her heart.

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She says very plainly to Stella that she's played out. She has spent a long time at the mercy of dying relatives who are busy spending their last hours squabbling; she was swamped with the financial disaster of Belle Reve. With both catastrophes, she had little to no help. Her own emotional imbalance, stemming at least from her husband's suicide, has made inroads into her capacity to deal with the world. This has, indeed, led her to burn her bridges. She is probably terrified of being alone for any great length of time: there are nightmares lodged in her heart.


You captured it wonderfully. It made me sick to see that scene where Stanley was carelessly going through Blanche's things and acting entitled to any finances she may have been inherited from Belle Reve when he and Stella did NOTHING to help Blanche with the caretaking of relatives or the house.

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She says very plainly to Stella that she's played out. She has spent a long time at the mercy of dying relatives who are busy spending their last hours squabbling; she was swamped with the financial disaster of Belle Reve. With both catastrophes, she had little to no help. Her own emotional imbalance, stemming at least from her husband's suicide, has made inroads into her capacity to deal with the world. This has, indeed, led her to burn her bridges. She is probably terrified of being alone for any great length of time: there are nightmares lodged in her heart.


You captured it wonderfully. It made me sick to see that scene where Stanley was carelessly going through Blanche's things and acting entitled to any finances she may have been inherited from Belle Reve when he and Stella did NOTHING to help Blanche with the caretaking of relatives or the house.

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I think in her own crazed way she was attracted to Stanley.

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