Blog Post #3 Topic 3

Blog Post #3 Topic 3

     A very famous quote of “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results" also relates to A Street Car Named Desire and one of its lead protagonists, Blanche. The quote is a perfect example of what the new redefined term of insanity encompasses in today's society.  As the definition from Merriam-Webster states, insanity is "extreme folly or unreasonableness, something utterly foolish or unreasonable." As said, the opposite of insanity would then be being reasonable and not entirely foolish. Therefore, some foolishness and unreasonableness is acceptable but not when taken to the "extreme." This definition is very vague in terms of what a person can determine what insanity is by the range of their consideration of foolishness, reasonableness, and their so to speak tolerance for the reasonableness and foolishness of said action/person. Before further analyzing the newer definition of insanity, it is important to also look at the more dated definition that is still used but less frequently. "[A] severely disordered state of the mind usually occurring as a specific disorder" is the older definition for insanity.  The older more dated definition is interesting to compare to the more used form because the nature of humanity is visible in the definitions. Where as before, insanity only pertained to the realms of mental condition, the term was blown out of proportion by the population and used in everyday situations by mass society. Instead of it being a word to describe those people that were entirely different than what people considered to be everyday, mundane living individuals became a word to describe actions that these "normal" individuals were now portraying flashes of the qualities that "outcasts" were always displaying. As such, society as a whole changes from simply classifying individuals for being different but alienating them to being more inclusive and now making it a word that really is relatable to any individual that make have qualities different to other people. This definition, however, does leave out the possibility of someone being of so reasonable it makes a paradox of this definition of insanity. In this case, there is so much logic that it becomes too reasonable. For example, when someone follows the rules to the exact letter it may be considered insane simply because others do not expect such rigidness.
     In the play, A Street Car Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, the sanity of Blanche is indeed questioned from the start of the play. In the start of the play, while her character is shown as an individual that may have anxiety or some sort of stress upon her, she behaves in a way where character development will be necessary to further explain her situation. Still, instead of progressing smoothly to develop her character to understand why she acts anxious and relieve her stress to become unstressed and calm as how Stanley or Stella are supposed to be, she never full does accomplish that state despite her attempts several times throughout the play. Instead, she acts deliberately false. Her actions are usually exaggerated and the way she treats herself in comparison to others is so different despite her environment. She is in a household where she is supposed to be submissive to the alpha male, in this case Stanley, and while she is submissive, she is able to keep her voice in the situation. She is still able to make different choices like stayin at Stella's house while not paying rent, using up all their utilities, go out at night with most likely Stanley's money, and doll herself up with out much interruption all while still complaining about how she is being treated unfairly despite how she also lied to both Stanley and Stella. Therefore, because she had all these accommodations given to her with out her ever realizing and just going through the motions whilst still complaining of not having anything is so twisted it may be described as being insane.