A Tragis Hero - Blanche

A Tragic Hero

A classic tragic hero, according to Aristotle, must be famous and/or prosperous. They must have a tragic flaw. They must also have a personality that has an effect that makes the reader not want anything good to come to them, but at the same time not wish bad upon them either. The character of Blanche from Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" fulfills all of these characteristics.

While Blanche may have lost everything due to lack of money, she is still fabulous in every essence of the word. She dresses in only extravagant clothing and takes hot baths in the middle of the day even during the summer. She doesn't know how to live without having people waiting on her hand and foot, doing everything she asks. This trait of hers makes her desirable, but annoying. It causes the reader to envy her in a way where they wish for everything she has, except her overbearing personality.

As for her tragic flaw, it is no secret that there's something not quite right about Blanche. She is definitely crazy. Although it is never said, it is quite obvious that Blanche has schizophrenia. This disease of hers further contributes to the mixed feelings the reader gets towards Blanche. She is psycho and irritating, but that can be blamed on her disease to make her a little more tolerable.

The part of the play in which all this is most obvious is when Blanche is raped by her sister Stella's husband, Stanley. Because Blanche had been so ungrateful and rude to Stanley after staying at his house uninvited for several months, the reader isn't completely sympathetic to Blanche being punished, but at the same time she is not nearly a bad enough person that the reader wished such an awful thing upon her.