I, I, I took the blows in my face and body! All of those deaths! The long parade to the graveyard! Father, mother! Margaret, that dreadful way! So big with it, it couldn’t be put in a coffin! But had to be burned like rubbish! You just came home in time for the funerals, Stella. And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. Funerals are quiet, but deaths – not always. Sometimes their breathing is hoarse, and sometimes it rattles, and sometimes they even cry out to you, "Don’t let me go!"
– Tennessee Williams
A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 1. Blanche’s mental deterioration has clearly been triggered by the deaths in her family, including the loss of her parents and her husband’s suicide. Using the metaphor of physical injury, she describes to Stella how she took these blows to her body. We get the sense that all of these deaths triggered Blanche’s descent into madness.