The epigraph to the play includes the four lines from “The Broken Tower”: “And so it was I entered the broken world / To trace the visionary company of love, it voice / An instant in the wind (I know not whither hurled) / But not for long to hold each desperate choice.”
Blanche considers herself a victim of this “broken world.” Society has brutalized this sensitive, delicate woman who completely falls apart because she can't survive the hardships that have befallen her. Alan's homosexualty (and rejection of her and the feminity she considers to be her strongest asset), his suicide, the loss of Belle Reve, the loss of her wealth and youth are all too much for her to handle.
