Blanche delivers a monologue that reveals her as a hysterical, insensitive, and self-obsessed character. She hyperbolizes the deaths she witnessed as a "long parade" to the graveyard, illustrating her insensitivity. As the monologue progresses, her self-victimization transforms into an unprovoked attack on Stella. She condemns Stella for not being present during the deaths and expresses disgust for Stella's relationship with Stanley, referring to him with an ethnic slur. Blanche seeks to damage Stella's integrity and remind her of her noble past in order to undermine her present happiness, demonstrating Blanche's self-absorption.

1. IB Lit - A Streetcar Named Desire - Blanche’s monologue
In Tennessee Williams’ A StreetcarNamed Desire,monologues play a vital part in highlighting the most
significant qualities of the characters who deliver them, Blanche in particular. Right from the start of the
play, the audience is introduced to a profoundly hysterical, insensitive and self-obsessed character and the
monologue in question reflects these qualities accurately.
Firstly, Blanche’s tendency to be hysterical can be observed in the following line: “All of those deaths!
The long parade to the graveyard!”,here, Blanche hyperbolises the deaths she witnessed, comparing the
funerals she attended to a ‘long parade’, which illustrates her insensitivity towards the deaths given her
sarcastic tone; the connotations that are normally associated with funerals are far less ecstatic than that of
a parade. “Sometimes their breathing is hoarse, and sometimes it rattles, and sometimes they even cry out
to you, ‘Don’t let me go!’, here, Blanche’s use of anaphora (repetition of a word or phrase at the
beginning of successive clauses),further illustrates her inclination to self-dramatise, “the Grim Reaper
had put his tent on our doorstep....Stella. Belle Reve was his headquarters!”,her reference to literature
here both highlight her frivolousness and snobbish nature and as the monologue progresses,this
inclination exacerbates and becomes more of an attack on Stella.
Blanche’s monologue transforms from being puerile self-victimisation into an unprovoked attack on
Stella. “And you sit there telling me with your eyes that I let the place go...How in hell do you think all
that sickness and dying was paid for?”,she becomes far more bombastic in speech and her colloquial
diction illustrated in her use of the phase "How in hell" suggests that she condemns Stella for not having
been present when all of the deaths took place. “Where were you. In bed with your - Polak!”, here,
Blanche’s accusations not only convey her condemnation towards Stella’s absence during the deaths,but
also underscores her profound disgust for Stella’s new found love, Stanley, given that she reduces him to
nothing more than ethnic slur ‘Polak’, which she even struggles to utter signified by the brief pause she
takes before finally labelling him so contemptibly, which only further conveys her disgust. Furthermore,
the fact that Blanche regards the relationship between Stella and Stanley with contempt also suggests her
own insecurity in that Stella is her younger sister and has found a partner whom she is deeply in love
with. It is for this reason that Blanche seeks to remind Stella of her noble past in order to undermine
present.
Blanche’s self-obsession becomes far more visible as she attempts to damage Stella’s integrity; she
exclaims that “Death is expensive”, illustrating that the responsibility she had to cater for the members of
her family who passed away is one she despises, demonstrating her self-absorption. In addition, she
assigns her younger sister with the unmarried title of “Miss”, which very much mimics the same fashion
in which Stella would have been addressed by her servants when she had still been residing Belle Reve,
and is perhaps another one of Blanche’s attempts to chide her younger sister by reminding her of where
she came from as well as a deploration of the life that she chosen to have with Stanley.
Blanche's entire monologue is decorated with lyrical and somewhat poetic diction and she becomes
terribly accusatory and condemning towards Stella; all of which points towards her self-obsessive and
insensitive nature to the extent that she does not even realise how hurtful her words are to Stella.