The Kindness of Strangers

          In the last scene of Tennessee Williams’s play:
A Streetcar Named Desire
, one of the main characters, Blanche DuBois, is about to be transported to an insane asylum. She doesn’t know what’s going on. She’s understands that she’s about to be taken somewhere.
She doesn’t know where. She’s confused, still, she retains the gracious manners of a proper Southern lady. She greets Doctor, and nurse, with a pleasant smile and an extended hand saying, “Aah have always depended on the kindness of strangers”.

          The entire play is excellent. Much could be said about it, but I’m only going to write about that one scene, and that one line.

          Blanche’s name may signify more than just a name. To blanch something is to make it white or pale by extracting color.
At this point in her life, Blanche - once a great beauty - has become blanched. The years have drained her of glamor, and left her faded, frail, and finally - crazy.

          Fading and frailty eventually happens to us all, but not all of us go crazy. The strain for Blanche was greater because she had nothing to fall back on. She had no skills, or talents,  or accomplishments of any sort – not even children.
Her youthful beauty had brought her gifts and adoration from many admirers - many strangers. When her star dimmed, the kindness of strangers became less, and less, until strangers were no longer kind to her, at all.
She recognized what was happening to her, but she refused to acknowledge it, to even herself.
When denial became impossible, she retreated into her memories, leaving this world of sorrows for the comfort of the better life, and the nicer people that flourished inside her own head.

          Was that crazy, or completely rational?

          What of the kindness of strangers? Is that crazy, too, or is it testimony to some blessed goodness in Blanche that she thought it only natural that people, including strangers, would always treat her well.

          “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap   Yet, your Heavenly Father feedeth them”. (Matthew 6/26).

          Why should a high-flying bird like Blanche expect less?

          Well, possibly because Blanche was silly, spoiled, and selfish. That aside, the notion that we are obligated by God to be kind to strangers remains.
“Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away”. (Matthew 6/41.
I don’t imagine Tennessee Williams intended Blanche as a literary reference to the Bible, nonetheless, kindness to strangers is ordained by God.

          Some will quibble that such behavior was good once… then… but, not now… not in these times. My answer to that is: God will not be quibbled with.

         Aren’t we all strangers in a strange land?

Shouldn’t then, we treat with kindness all those we meet along the road?
Aren’t they all our brothers and sisters - to whom we have not yet been introduced.















One Bird at a Time

ERC - The Educational Research Council