Throughout the story temptation and destruction were the main themes that were seen. The two main characters Blanche and Stanley best showed these themes. Though they are very different there seems to be a fine line between them or at least its easy to slip to either side of the spectrum. Blanche was a self-proclaimed “proper southern woman” who goes by old-fashioned ideas when it comes to sexual desire and marriage.Throughout the play Blanche tries to keep up her image of being proper even though she is hiding the secret that she was fired from her job for sleeping with her 17 year old student and being promiscuous with multiple men in her hometown. These actions took place after the tragic death of her husband. This shows that during her grieving she felt the need to give into her desire and sin which was ultimately caused her demise. Some of her desires though were actually morally wrong she’s actually kind of a pedophile because of sleeping with her student and then kissing another young boy she didn’t even know then sending him away saying “I need to keep my hands off children” to me this shows that Blanche was completely aware of her doings and they cannot be blamed on grief. As Blanche’s secrets come out we see the decline of her mental stability and health she starts having delusions and trying to keep up the facade that her life is perfect. The last straw to drive her off the edge was Stanley and his assault on her.
Stanley was the total opposite of Blanche;he tough, brutally honest, and destructive. Before Blanche even arrives to New Orleans Stanley was known for being destructive according to Stella he threw fits often and even punched a hole in their wall on their wedding night. He did these things to show off his strength and dominance in the household and keep up the image of being the boss. Stanley and Blanche both had very strong personalities that often led to conflict. Eventually Stanley starts looking dirt on Blanche so he can make her leave. He confronts her with the information he found about her being fired and her relations with men which causes the start of her mental decline. He also tells this information with Mitch (Blanche’s crush) who also confronts her leading to a heated argument and all of her truths coming out. All throughout the play Stanley’s main goal is to destroy Blanche’s life by illuminating her dark secrets and truths, his last and most brutal act of destruction towards her is him assaulting her. This last act truly destroys Blanche’s already fragile mental state, but when Blanche tells Stella about this she doesn’t believe her and Stanley denies it which leads to them sending Blanche to a mental hospital. This ending is kind of ironic because the whole time Stanley wants bring out the truth and is brutally honest but then the story ends because of his lie.