You might like to consider the way that the past intrudes
on the present in this excellent play, in particular concerning Blanche's former husband
and how he met his end. The device that Williams uses to remind both us and Blanche of
his death is the Varouviana, which was the polka tune to which Blance danced with her
young husband when he was last alive and before he killed himself. Let us remember that
prior to dancing, Blanche had discovered her husband's homosexuality and then, in the
middle of the dance, told him how repellent he was to her. This is the event that
triggered his suicide.
The way in which this music is
played at various points in the play reminds us of the death of Blanche's husband and
also indicates her own kind of "death" but in terms of her mental decline and her death
of innocence. Just tracing the times when she hears this music shows that it occurs
whenever Blanche struggles to hold on to reality, which is therefore richly symbolic of
her husband's death but also her own "death" towards which she is plummeting in terms of
her mental health.
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