Victimization: tragedy's accomplice

The two characters who are most victimized would be Blanche and Mitch. Blanche is a victim to many negative characteristics. Clearly, Blanche is a victim of her pride and her delusions caused by the past. She is trapped by her inability to get over her husband's death and creates her own dream world in order to escape it. It is because she is a victim that she creates all this drama and a bad image of herself but she just refuses to acknowledge this fact due to her pride. Her flaws drives her to her downfall in which the whole cast soon knows about her sinful actions in Hotel Flamingo and back in Laurel, her hometown. Her past creates this fear of loss in which she is another victim of. She fears losing aristocracy and true happiness with real love. This forces her to find comfort in any man and those who remind her of Allan, her husband. She pretends to be of high-class and as if she is desirable to men to quiet reality. As a tragic victim to all these characteristics, it is sad to see the effects of being victimized drive her into the end of her road, which points to going to a mental institution.



Mitch on the other hand, is not a victim of himself but rather he is a victim to others. He is also tied to his family duty. His mother is seriously ill and her only wish is for Mitch to bring home a wife that is worth her praise. With this pressure, Mitch has no choice but to find someone who may seem easy to approach so that he can marry her within a limited time. Blanche somewhat fulfills this requirement. Mitch knows that she is old and he is willing to give her an opportunity of love for the sake of making his mother happy. Blanche has high standards and it requires a man to double his effort in order to court her. He was willing to give crazy Blanche a chance when all the readers can see that Blanche is obviously not worthy of Mitch. He is sacrificing his own ideal of a woman and working hard to accommodate a woman who is high maintenance to accomplish his mother's wish. Sure, Mitch may have fallen for Blanche but soon he realizes that Blanche becomes a liar and in the midst of trying to fulfill his mother's wish, he becomes yet another victim to heartbreak. He thought that Blanche could have been the one but now all his efforts and sacrifice has been negated. Blanche was just using Mitch for companionship whereas Mitch had put him himself out there for real love. Throughout the play, it seems that we only see Mitch as a tragic victim and barely a winner.