AO4 and AO5

Question 1

J.M McGlinn

Answer 1

‘Her refusal to accept Blanche’s story of the rape is a commitment to self-preservation rather than love’

Question 2

Vlasopolos

Answer 2

‘Critics have noted astonishing similarities between these two antagonists, such as their love of costume, their charged sexual presence, their tendency to aggrandize themselves’

Question 3

Elia Kazan

Answer 3

Saw Blanche as a tragic victim of a misogynistic society that discards “damaged” women.

Question 4

Judith Butler

Answer 4

Blanche performs femininity in a way that reveals gender as constructed, not innate

Question 5

Raymond Williams

Answer 5

Stanley represents the brutal emergence of a new working-class America, while Blanche represents a decaying aristocracy.

Question 6

Terry Eagleton

Answer 6

Desire and class are intertwined; Blanche’s downfall is partly due to her class-based illusions.

Question 7

Jaceques Lacan

Answer 7

Blanche is stuck in the Imaginary order, unable to reconcile with symbolic reality—hence her retreat into illusion.

Question 8

Freud

Answer 8

Blanche’s trauma and repression manifest in hysteria, denial, and desire for death