Is Blanche crazy? Or what is her sickness?

Blanche is a romanticist. This is due to a number of
influences. She was raised like a Southern belle in a typical Southern mansion called
Belle Reve (which means beautiful dream). Girls of that era and social class spent much
of their time reading, and characteristically they liked romantic poetry and romantic
novels. If they went to school it would be to a young ladies finishing school where they
were taught nothing but impractical subjects such as music, art, literature, and
etiquette. Refinement without money is hard to sustain. She tells how her father and
other male relatives wasted money and had to sell off all the land around the mansion,
so that it was inevitable that the building itself would deteriorate and go into
foreclosure. Forced to do something to earn her own living, Blanche became a teacher,
and she naturally taught the romantic subjects she knew, such as the works of authors
like Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott. Her interest in young boys is consistent with her
romantic character. She is not attracted to the carnal aspects of sex but to the
romantic aspects. She likes boys who look beautiful and sensitive. She was married to
such a youth, but he committed suicide. He may have been too romantic and sensitive to
succeed at anything in the harsh world of reality, especially in a region where the
economy was ruined by war.

Blanche herself is struggling to
survive in that cold, cruel world. She, of course, symbolizes the Old South which was
dealt a death blow by the Civil War and is being overwhelmed by strong, brutal,
aggressive, selfish, immoral realists like Stanley Kowalski. William Faulkner dwells on
a similar theme in many of his great novels, notably in the "Snopes Trilogy," consisting
of The Hamlet, The Town, and The Mansion. Blanche only moves in with her sister and
brother-in-law out of desperation. She has run out of alternatives. She is broke and
probably can't pursue a career as a teacher because she has destroyed her reputation by
immoral conduct. This immoral conduct is indicative of the decadence of the Old South
and was exhibited by the male relatives who were responsible for the loss of Belle
Reve.

Stanley understands her immediately. He would
classify her as a phoney. He knows she despises him, and therefore he enjoys tearing her
illusions apart. Without her illusions she loses her mind and has to be
institutionalized. Tennessee Williams has done such a marvelous job of dramatizing the
changing social conditions of the Old South that his play hardly needs any explication.
We sympathize with Blanche. She is in some ways a better person than Stanley, but hers
is the kind of superiority that depends on income, and the wealth of the Old South
depended on the exploitation of slaves.