example of student literary analysis

*The version below has been somewhat edited, and could use some more textual citation to support points within the middle parts, but do pay attention to some of the interpretations and focus on explaining how the line has clarified Blanch DuBois's character as lonely and needy...and then explains that through the text.

A representative line from Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire is the line from scene 11, with the main character Blanche speaking to the doctor come to take her to the psyche ward: ""Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." The line sums up the character and outcome of protagonist Blanche DuBois, a woman who desperately seeks honest acceptance from any form of humankind. When she states that she has "always depended on the kindness of strangers," the audience sees her loneliness and how Blanche has lived much of her life as a "woman of the night," taking numerous strangers into her bed for solicited passion. 

Far too long, she had allowed these men (even a boy) to give her a false sense of love and security, to the point she began to believe their lies - even creating many lies of her own, as she tried to hide or justify her immoral lifestyle. 

As a child, Blanche had been groomed in comfortable living conditions - affluent to say the least. As an adult, she lost the mansion she once lived in, but still needed to maintain her modest social status somehow. It is apparent that more than intimacy, Blanche sought someone, anyone, who would treat her as the prim and proper lady she so badly wanted to be. Someone who would not pass judgment on the person she really was. Though she knew it was not genuine, Blanche accepted the artificial "kindness" of these strangers because it masked the loneliness she really felt. Blanche was lonely and this "kindness" is what she lived for, until she was banned from the hotel room she had turned into a whorehouse. Throughout the play, Blanche still attempts to fill this void.

Loneliness echoes the attitude of other characters in this production. Harold "Mitch" Mitchell for one, was romantically linked to Blanche. He too was lonely and sought the companionship of a beautiful and proper woman and Blanche is exactly what he was looking for. In Scene 6, they express their loneliness and how together, they would no longer be alone. However, when he gets wind of Blanche's shady past he dumps her immediately and unsympathetically. Unlike Blanche, Mitch sought an honest woman and refused to settle for less. He wanted "kindness" too, but it had to be real, lest he stay lonely and continue to live at home with his ailing mother. Mitch knew he would be more lonely when his mother was no longer around. Apparently, he did not care.

Blanche makes the noteworthy quote at the end of the play, speaking to Doctor, who arrives to take her to a mental institution. He was a caring and compassionate gentleman, and he addresses her as a lady - this is all she had ever wanted. The psychiatric doctor represents freedom from loneliness and all that is good in humankind, and in Blanche's mind, she has finally found the real kindness of a stranger. This time, with no strings attached.