the character of Blanche.
A woman from a good family, high up the class system with a good amount of money, she had obviously had a fall from the top over the previous few years due to a mix of promiscuity, carelessness and pure vanity. Although it is not obvious to the audience at first. The character of Blanche is mentally ill and seems to have a ditzy, distorted view of day-to-day life.
One enormous trouble which Blanche had was with truth-telling. Consistently through-out the play, Blanche would deceive her peers to try and give people a better opinion on her or look upon her more favourably. She would try to convince them that she was to be whisked away by a rich man whom she would live out the rest of her days with but this was never to be the case. Eventually, after investigating into her background, Stanley challenged everything she had told them throughout the play, inevitably uncovering the truth.She has huge issues with the idea of aging. We know this because she goes to ridiculous extremities in order to keep herself from looking as old as she is. For example, she demands not to be seen in any natural light (which would often look flattering on a person) because she refuses to let people see her face properly. This could be put down to an extremely poor self esteem problem and massive insecurity issues but it could simply be an extreme vanity disorder.
Blanche also faced problems with alcoholism in the play. On several occasions throughout the script, Blanche would be seen trying to sneak reasonable quantities of 'Stanley's liquor'. She did this mostly in secret because she didn't want people finding out about her drinking problem, to the extent that she would often decline a drink when offered one by somebody, in attempt to cover her tracks.
Another way Williams tackles this idea of a tortured condition is showing that people tend to target the weak minded and those with these issues because they are vulnerable. This is highlighted when Stanley, whom had unresolved and heated issues with Blanche from the very beginning, sexually abused her while his child was being born. Partially down to a heat of the moment, but partially due to him knowing that nobody would believe her and simply assume she was lying once again, Stanley knew that if he did something to her then he would escape scott-free.
Generally, the idea of a tortured condition is explored a lot throughout the text and several different issues are tackled and used through Blanche.
