Mexican Woman [she is at the door and offers Blanche some of her flowers]:
Flores? Flores para los muertos?
Blanche [frightened]:
No, no! Not now! Not now! (p. 148)
It was the death of her husband that led to Blanche DuBois’ desire for men – to fill the void in her heart left by his death (“Yes, I had many intimacies with strangers. After the death of Allan – intimacies with strangers was all I seemed able to fill my empty heart with… (p. 146)”). Blanche sought attention from men who reminded her of her deceased husband and shockingly began an inappropriate relationship with a seventeen-year-old student which led to her termination and shunning.
She fled to Elysian Fields on a streetcar named Desire to make a new life for herself (“I’m going to do something. Get hold of myself and make myself a new life (p. 73)!”). However, Blanche continued to relive the past and often became overwhelmed with the memory of the death of her husband, which she attempted to suppress with alcohol. Haunted by his memory, Blanche briefly lost herself at the sight of a young man who resembled him (“[Without waiting for him to accept, she crosses quickly to him and presses her lips to his.] Now run along now, quickly! It would be nice to keep you, but I’ve got to be good – and keep my hands off children (p. 99).”).
Blanche and Mitch meet at Elysian Fields and bond over their shared understanding of loneliness, sickness and death (“You need somebody. And I need somebody, too. Could it be – you and me, Blanche (p. 116)?”). Until Stanley shared Blanche’s notorious past with Mitch, she sincerely hoped that he could permanently fill the void that Allen had left (“You said you needed somebody. Well, I needed somebody, too. I thanked God for you, because you seemed to be gentle – a cleft in the rock of the world that I could hide in! But I guess I was asking, hoping – too much (p. 147)!”). It was during Blanche’s confrontation with Mitch that she came to the realization that it was too late for the void to be filled, that she was no longer desirable and, therefore, death was not far.
Blanche:
Death – I used to sit here and she used to sit over there and death was as close as you are. …We didn’t dare even admit we had ever heard of it!
Mexican Woman:
Flores para los muertos, flores – flores…
Blanche:
The opposite is desire. (p. 149)
This realization led to her initial mental deterioration and her rape, as well as the disbelief from her sister, accelerated it. Blanche was admitted into a mental hospital against her will with her realization of death having been suppressed with the idea that Shep Huntleigh was coming to take her away.
Blanche:
What you are talking about is brutal desire – just – Desire! – the name of that rattle-trap street-car that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another…
Stella:
Haven’t you ever ridden on that street-car?
Blanche:
It brought me here. Where I’m not wanted and where I’m ashamed to be… (p. 81)