Essay

       The Yearning That Becomes Need

 

                 Prompt: The ways in which individuals pursue or compromise their happiness.

 

Jubilance is a trait one cannot acquire, for it can only be attained if it is shared between individuals. And somehow it always beckons us from a place of understanding and ignorance. For happiness seems our sanctuary and seemingly ignites to life of oneself that they may have disregarded or been unaware of. It is a fire, and with its touch we are warm, and without it we burn because of the cold we had forgotten was there and in existence. Happiness allows us to forget what once was and we naively remain ignorant towards the despair it can ultimately initiate. Its disappearance leaves us remembering and the need to attain it succumbs to the depths of temptation, desperation, and destruction. Therefore, within Tennessee William’s modern drama, A Streetcar Named Desire, one is able to argue that an individual’s pursuit of happiness can arise through innocent means, but through immoral attitudes an individual may acquire, the pursuit will consequently shift to that of illusion in order to compensate with society’s view upon attaining happiness. However, as illusion fails to become a means of achieving permanent jubilance an individual will succumb to delusion, in which they initiate the pursuit of a happiness that is not an actuality, but a reality within the mental unsoundness of their mind.

Within her youthful past, Blanche pursued a sense of happiness through an innocent and moral value, in which the ideals of society were disregarded. This pursuit shifted as her husband Allan Grey instigated ruin upon their marriage, and revealed that it was based upon pure façade, which consequently shifted her need to attain jubilance to one of immoral standards. Blanche was a young and youthful Antebellum within her relationship with Allan Grey. Her love and happiness was founded in complete trust and belief of her significant other. The act of marriage was her final pursuit of happiness, as it legally bound her soul to Allan. Her attainment of happiness was not founded on societal ideals but rather her own, in which she sought out the need for happiness through one man. This is what can be described and deemed to be an innocent love. Blanche was in a circumstance in which she wanted no other and found satisfaction with whom she was with; her mind was in a pure state as she did not lie or cheat to Allan and ultimately found her truth in Allan. As through him, she founded herself; a self that had previously been confided into the darkness. However, as Blanche founded Allan sleeping with another man, her pursuit of a perfect marriage crumbled, and her innocence subsequently suffered. She claimed herself to be guilty of Allan’s death and began to sleep with other men to achieve and her formerly ideal sense of happiness. Blanche no longer was the pure maiden she once was but succumbed to the depths of prostitution, and her pursuit shifted to that of an immoral standpoint. As Blanche went against the ideals of what society deemed to be worthy, Blanche was situated within a circumstance of the need to attain what once was. She pursued young men noted through formerly sleeping with a student within her hometown, Laurel. These men were youthful which reflected Blanche’s want to attain the happiness she had temporarily claimed to be hers with Allan Grey. Blanche invariably descended into immoral temptation, which not only became an exhausting task but proved itself to be incompetent, as it furthered herself from the goal to attain what once was. She slept with men to attempt to attain her former innocence through them. However, as these acts of prostitution temporarily allowed Blanche to escape from her reality, she was notably developing a tarnished reputation and was forcibly told to remove herself from Laurel, and through her financial unsoundness Blanche journeyed to Elysian Fields as a means to start anew. She began to base her need to achieve a stable happiness through considering herself to be mannered, youthful, and proper lady through neglecting her looming past of immoral desire.

Blanche began to seek jubilance through maintaining a façade of who she was, an illusion that convinced others of her worthiness and one in which she would be able to attain a happiness that would be deemed accepted within society’s eyes. As Blanche was enveloped within the Kowalski household she immediately began judging the poverty that her sister Stella, and her husband Stanley were situated within the amidst of. She considered it to be a place if impurity within her tarnished eyes. Through recognizing the flaws coexisting with Elysian Fields Blanche was able submerge her own, which allowed her to convince herself of her façade of innocence. As Blanche pursued a chance at new beginnings, she became acquainted with Mitch, who she devised to kindle a relationship with as to achieve the sanctuary of happiness and stability he could only provide. Through recognizing that Mitch was an individual that was ignorant to her former nature unlike Stanley, Blanche sought out to manipulate him and deem herself to be worthy. Therefore, Blanche asked him to place a paper lantern over a light bulb, which diminished the threat of an intrusive exposure and allowed her to manipulate Mitch into thinking that she in fact is a pure woman. Blanche fails to make any remarks upon her former prostitutions, further convincing Mitch that she in fact is a just woman on a date, rather than one who is in a desperate circumstance needing to attain the satisfaction marriage with him, who can only invariably provide it. The hindrance of herself is also noted when Blanche speaks French to Mitch, knowing that he is unable to understand her. Within French, Blanche articulates her immoral desires and suggests a sexual side of her that she, through her illusion, deemed to be nonexistent. As Blanche refuses to accept the past of herself and forgive herself for it, her tarnished reputation begins to seep into the pursuit of her happiness. Stanley is one who becomes suspicious of who Blanche is and irrevocably animalistic individual whom cruelly reveals her flaws. It becomes more difficult for Blanche to maintain her sense of this illusion as the Varsouvianna music of her past begins to present itself within her reality. Blanche’s attempts at an illusion prove to be a limiting in providing her with the accessibility of attaining jubilance with Mitch, as Stanley does the inevitable and reveals the truths of her past and deems her impure within Mitch’s eyes. Blanche desperately tries to grasp onto a shred of chance and attempts to maintain her hopes of achieving the happiness that a stable relationship can provide through claiming a man named Mr. Shep awaits her arrival, when in fact it is just simply a nonexistent reality.

As Blanche’s illusion is no longer able to hold itself to be a stable means of achieving a sound happiness, Blanche succumbs to delusion, in which through her loss of sanity, she is able to believe in a happiness that can never exist within reality. As her illusion is no longer able to maintain its façade, Blanche is unable to come to terms with the brutality and harshness her reality infringes upon her pursuit of happiness. Society deems an impure woman as one who is marred and unable to become the status that a husband asks of a woman. Therefore, as Blanche is exposed and society deems her as a pity case, Blanche realizes she can no longer expect reality to provide her with a sense of happiness as she is unable follow it in action. Therefore, Blanche succumbs to losing her insanity because it is the only sanctuary where society does not impose its threatening presence for it does not exist. Through losing all sense of human sense and control, Blanche is able to control her pursuit of happiness and validate her attainment of it. Blanche, within her state of insanity, awaits for Mr. Shep to come and take her from the constraints of Belle Reve when in actuality a doctor is awaiting her arrival as she is going to be sent to an asylum. This presents how Blanche is unable to consider or suspect the threats that may infringe upon her need to attain happiness, for she believes in its stability nature of staying. She pursues a happiness that is a figment of her imagination, and ultimately awaits for a man that will never come. However, when the doctor does present himself, Blanche begins to become frightened, but as he is a man and Blanche has always depended on “the kindness of strangers” he does not possess the threat he once would have. Rather he instigates the relief and jubilance she is determined to find, never knowing it was not there in the first place.

Within Tennessee Williams play, A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche Dubois becomes a character that is in a constant pursuit of happiness. Her past self attained this yearning for jubilance through an innocence in which deception did not exist, however as that joy was based upon fallacy Blanche succumbed to immoral desire and attained the need to achieve the stability of happiness through an illusion. As Blanche is unable to accept the tarnished reality of who she is, she succumbs to the hands of delusion and insanity in which she can pursue happiness without the threats society may impose. One pursues happiness in many forms and follows it with immoral and moral action, but it always was based upon a sense of purity. Happiness first touches individuals, when they are simply being or not even searching for it. It touches them and leaves the imprint of memory and causes this need to attain it, even when one has lost it. Without happiness, we are desperate and unfulfilled, but with happiness we are at the peak of bliss. And happiness is forever changing, and as it turns into our despair it can invariably shape our demise as individuals. Desperation turns into necessity and our yearning turns into need, and we forget that sound happiness only ever started from a place of purity and soundness.

 

 

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