[Originally a dissertation presented at the University of Southern California in 1951, the essay from which the following excerpt is taken was first published in 1955 in Sievers's book Freud on Broadway: A History of Psychoanalysis and the American Drama.]
In A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams has depicted profoundly the origins and growth of schizophrenia. He has shown Blanche struggling to master her conflicting drives of sex and superego, to live up to an inner image of a belle of the old South while living in circumstances in which it is an anachronism. At first she is in rebellion against her own nature but in touch with reality. As the various doors of escape are closed to her and she finds Stanley across her one remaining path, her mind is unable to cope with this impossible conflict. She closes the door to reality and escapes to a psychotic world where gallant gentlmen will give her shelter.
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