Mississippi

Mississippi is the state that defines Blanche DuBois's origins and the world she has lost by the time she arrives in New Orleans. It is the location of Belle Reve, the DuBois family plantation, and of Laurel, the town where Blanche worked as a high school English teacher. The state represents the old Southern gentility that Blanche clings to and the site of the personal and financial catastrophes that have destroyed her life.

Identity and Background

Blanche comes from Mississippi, a fact she states plainly when Stanley Kowalski asks where she is from: "Why, I—live in Laurel" . Eunice Hubbell, the upstairs neighbor, confirms this when she asks Blanche, "And you're from Mississippi, huh?" . Blanche later identifies herself to the Young Collector as "her sister from Mississippi" , emphasizing her status as an outsider in New Orleans. The state is also the home of Belle Reve, the plantation that Eunice describes as "a great big place with white columns" . Stella Kowalski recalls that the summer Blanche left Belle Reve was "the summer Dad died and you left us" , marking Mississippi as the place of both family origin and family dissolution.

Life and Plot Trajectory

Mississippi is the setting for the key events that have shaped Blanche's present. She taught English at a high school in Laurel, a job she lost after becoming involved with a seventeen-year-old student . The town of Laurel itself became hostile to her; Stanley reports that "the town was too small for this to go on forever" and that she "became a town character" . The state is also the location of the army camp near Laurel that declared Blanche's residence "Out-of-Bounds" . Most devastatingly, Mississippi is where Blanche's young husband Allan Grey shot himself after she confronted him about his homosexuality. Blanche describes the scene: "We danced the Varsouviana! Suddenly in the middle of the dance the boy I had married broke away from me and ran out of the casino. A few moments later—a shot!" . She recalls that "he'd stuck the revolver into his mouth, and fired—so that the back of his head had been—blown away" . This trauma, which occurred at Moon Lake Casino, is the central wound of Blanche's life and is inextricably linked to Mississippi.

Key Actions and Objectives

Blanche's Mississippi past is the source of the lies and evasions that define her behavior in New Orleans. She tells Stella that she left the school because her "nerves broke" and that the superintendent "suggested I take a leave of absence" , but Stanley later reveals that she was actually fired for her relationship with a student . Blanche's claim that she stayed at Belle Reve and "fought for it, bled for it, almost died for it" is undercut by the revelation that she was eventually asked to leave the Flamingo Hotel in Laurel . The state also provides the destination for the bus ticket Stanley buys for Blanche: "Ticket! Back to Laurel! On the Greyhound! Tuesday!" . This ticket represents the final rejection of Blanche by her sister's household and the impossibility of returning to Mississippi.

Relationships and Conflict

Mississippi is the ground of Blanche's most significant relationships. Her marriage to Allan Grey, which ended in his suicide, took place there. Her relationship with Stella is defined by the loss of Belle Reve, which Blanche insists she alone fought to preserve: "You are the one that abandoned Belle Reve, not I! I stayed and fought for it, bled for it, almost died for it!" . The state also figures in Blanche's romantic hopes; she writes to Shep Huntleigh that she is "spending the summer on the wing, making flying visits here and there" , a lie that conceals her Mississippi disgrace. When Mitch confronts her about her past, he mentions that he checked on her story through "our supply-man who travels through Laurel" and spoke directly to "Kiefaber" , a merchant from Laurel. Blanche admits the truth: "Yes, I had many intimacies with strangers. After the death of Allan—intimacies with strangers was all I seemed able to fill my empty heart with" .

Change and Ending

Mississippi is the place Blanche can never return to, yet it is the only place she has. Stanley's bus ticket to Laurel is a cruel reminder that her past has made her unwelcome everywhere. In her final scene, Blanche hallucinates that she is going on a cruise with Shep Huntleigh, but the reality is that she is being taken away by a Doctor and a Matron from a state institution. The "Varsouviana" polka, the music that played at Moon Lake Casino when Allan died, haunts her throughout the play . Mississippi, with its associations of lost gentility, sexual trauma, and social ruin, is the inescapable ghost that Blanche carries with her even as she is led away from New Orleans.

Narrative Role and Evaluation

Mississippi functions in the play as the geographical symbol of Blanche's past—a past that is both idealized and degraded. It is the source of her claims to refinement and the site of her deepest shame. The state's contrast with New Orleans, a city that Blanche initially finds horrifying ("Only Poe! Only Mr. Edgar Allan Poe!—could do it justice!" E00232), underscores the cultural and moral collision between the old Southern aristocracy and the new industrial working class. Mississippi is not merely a setting but a character in Blanche's psyche, the place where her identity was formed and destroyed.