And I’ll be buried at sea sewn up in a clean white sack and dropped overboard – at noon – in the blaze of summer – and into an ocean as blue as my first lover’s eyes!
– Tennessee Williams
A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 11. As she descends further into madness and is about to be sent to a mental institution, Blanche romanticizes her own death. In this idealized version of her passing, we see the motif of bathing in the imagery and colors – she speaks of "clean" and "white" and "sea." In a simile she compares the blue of the sea to that of her first lover’s eyes. The passage echoes Blanche’s obsession with washing throughout the play as a need to seek purification of her sins and escape harsh reality.