Blanche DuBois (character)

Blanche DuBois
Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois from the trailer for the original film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
First appearance	A Streetcar Named Desire
Created by	Tennessee Williams
Portrayed by	Gillian Anderson Ann-Margret Tallulah Bankhead Cate Blanchett Blythe Danner Gretchen Egolf Renée Fleming Uta Hagen Rosemary Harris Isabelle Huppert Yvonne Kenny Jessica Lange Vivien Leigh Lois Nettleton Nicole Ari Parker Maxine Peake Natasha Richardson Amy Ryan Jessica Tandy Rachel Weisz
Information
Gender	Female
Occupation	High school English teacher
Spouse(s)	Allan Grey (deceased)
Relatives	Stella Kowalski (sister) Stanley Kowalski (brother-in-law) a nephew a niece

Blanche DuBois (married name Grey) is a fictional character in Tennessee Williams' 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire. The character was written for Tallulah Bankhead.

Blanche DuBois arrives, penniless, in New Orleans to stay with her sister Stella and her brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski. A former schoolteacher from a wealthy family, she has been evicted from her family home, "Belle Reve", after the deaths of several family members wiped out her and Stella's inheritance. It is also later revealed that, years earlier, her husband, Allan Grey, committed suicide after she caught him having sex with another man. She had a series of meaningless affairs to numb her grief, and was soon thrown out of her hometown of Laurel, Mississippi, as a "woman of loose morals" after sleeping with one of her high school English students.

Behind her veneer of social snobbery and sexual propriety, Blanche is deeply insecure, an aging Southern belle who lives in a state of perpetual panic about her fading beauty. Her manner is dainty and frail, and she sports a wardrobe of showy but cheap evening clothes, as indicated in the stage directions for Scene 10: "She had decked herself out in a somewhat soiled and crumpled white satin evening gown and a pair of scuffed silver slippers with brilliants set in their heels."

From the start, Blanche is appalled by her sister's poor living quarters and the coarseness of her brother-in-law. She calls Stanley an ape, and shames Stella for marrying a man so violent and animalistic. Blanche is not shy about expressing her contempt for Stanley and the life he has given her sister, which makes him proud. For his part, Stanley resents Blanche's superior attitude, and is convinced that she has squandered Stella's portion of the money from the sisters' ancestral home.

Blanche begins dating Stanley's friend Harold "Mitch" Mitchell, who is distinct from Stanley in his courtesy and propriety, and sees in him a chance for happiness. That hope is destroyed, however, when Stanley learns of Blanche's past from a traveling salesman who knew her, and reveals it to Mitch, who ends the relationship. Blanche begins drinking heavily and escapes into a fantasy world, conjuring up the notion that an old flame, a millionaire named Shep Huntleigh, is imminently planning to take her away.