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 and made popular to later audiences with Elia Kazan's 1951 film adaptation of Williams' play; A Streetcar Named Desire, starring Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando. Character overview The recently penniless and homeless Blanche DuBois arrives in New Orleans--though with the attitude of a wealthy woman--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 a 17-year-old boy. 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 and concerns about how others perceive her looks. She is nervous, and constantly flutters and paces about. Her manner is dainty and frail, and she sports a wardrobe of showy but tattered 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." She has an obsession with staying out of direct light, and even covers a light bulb with a paper lantern. She bathes several times a day and goes through many bottles of perfume during her stay with Stella. Role in the play From the start, Blanche is appalled by her sister's poor living quarters and the coarseness of her brother-in-law. Williams shows her physical appearance in stark contrast to Stella's humble quarters which foreshadows her inability to conform in a world dominated by patriarchal values that Stanley represents. 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