THANATOS AND SELF-DESTRUCTION: A FREUDIAN READING OF BLANCHE DUBOIS IN A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

Abstract

This article offers a psychoanalytic interpretation of Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, analysing her self-destructive behaviour through Freud’s concept of the death drive (Thanatos). It emphasises that Blanche’s downfall extends beyond social or gender explanations and instead reveals an unconscious impulse towards self-destruction. Using Freud’s ideas of Eros, Thanatos, and repetition compulsion, the article traces Blanche’s decline through her rituals of purification, her reliance on illusion, and her compulsive return to trauma. Her statement, “I don’t tell the truth. I tell what ought to be the truth,” illustrates this inward collapse where fantasy serves as both refuge and ruin. Blanche thus becomes not just a tragic figure but a symbol of Freud’s insight that “the aim of all life is death” (Beyond the Pleasure Principle 38). The article situates her tragedy within the context of modern American drama’s focus on desire and decay.