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Blanche DuBois
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Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).

Blanche DuBois

fictional character
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Article History

Blanche DuBois, character in A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), a Pulitzer Prize-winning drama by Tennessee Williams.

An alcoholic nymphomaniac posing as the epitome of genteel Southern womanhood, Blanche has, from her first appearance, a fragile hold on reality. When her brutish brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski rapes her, she loses her last vestiges of sanity. Trying to maintain her affected refinement to the end, she says to a doctor, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

Considered a prime dramatic role, Blanche DuBois was played by Jessica Tandy in the original stage production in 1947 and by Vivien Leigh in Elia Kazan’s 1951 film.

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This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.