Blanche's Encounters with the Young Collector

Blanche's brief, flirtatious interaction with a young newspaper collector reveals her desperate need for validation and her tendency to blur boundaries.

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Kissing the Young Collector

A Moment of Temptation The Encounter While waiting for Mitch to arrive, Blanche is visited by a young collector from The Evening Star. She is immediately struck by his youth and innocence. She teases him, offers him a drink, and eventually kisses him on the mouth. The kiss is a reenactment of her past behavior with young men, and it reveals her compulsive need for admiration and intimacy. Yet she pulls back, saying she must keep her hands off children. A Sign of Decay This scene is a glimpse into the behavior that led to Blanche's downfall in Laurel. It shows that she is unable to control her impulses, even when she knows the consequences. The young collector is a stand-in for the seventeen-year-old student she had an affair with, and his presence triggers both desire and shame. The kiss is a fleeting moment of pleasure, but it underscores the moral decay that Stanley will later exploit to destroy her.

the day after the Hubbell fight, late afternoon