Tennessee Williams’s Blanche DuBois: “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” makes sense only if she has multiple personality.

As I noted in yesterday’s post, the text of this play gives no prior examples of the kindness of strangers. Indeed, Blanche had been kicked out of the town where she had been working as a teacher, for her having had sex with a student, to which people had not taken kindly.

Her regular “host” personality (lady-like and mildly flirtatious) simply does not account for her history of being sexually promiscuous and predatory, which implies the existence of a promiscuous and predatory alternate personality. And, very likely, Blanche (host personality) had amnesia, memory gaps, for the periods of time that the alter had been out and in control.

This means that, over the years, Blanche had repeatedly found herself in places and situations that the alter had gotten her into—for example, in a hotel bed with a stranger—but that Blanche couldn’t explain. If the man had gotten what he wanted and now saw that she was upset and confused (he might guess that she had had sex with him because she was intoxicated or in an alcoholic blackout), then either he or hotel staff might have acted kindly toward her, helping her get her things together, into a taxi, and safely on her way home, which, to the host personality, would have been the kindness of strangers.

Multiple personality starts in childhood. Its two cardinal symptoms are alternate personalities and memory gaps. Since Blanche (host personality) has had episodes of finding herself with strangers literally for decades, she has, indeed, “always depended on the kindness of strangers.”