How does Blanche's desperation to be the dominant figure eventually result in the tragedy that befalls her in A Streetcar Named Desire?

Blanche DuBois
represents a desire to cling to a romanticized pasther own and that of the aristocratic South.
She was raised on a plantation called Belle Reve, but she has come down in the world so much
that she needs to rely on her sister, Stella, who lives in a run-down apartment in New Orleans.
When Blanche first arrives at Stella's apartment, Blanche says the following:

Oh, I'm not going to be hypocritical, I'm going to be honestly
critical about it! Never, never, never in my worst dreams could I pictureOnly Poe! Only Mr.
Edgar Allan Poe!could do it justice!

Blanche finds her
straightened circumstances as horrific as living in a Poe story. Later, she finds Stella's
husband, Stanley, repellent for his crude, working-class ways. Instead of adjusting herself to
reality, she continues to look for a romantic ideal. She searches for these ideals in part by
trying to seduce men, and she also lives in a world of pretense and daydreams.

By trying to dominate her situation this way and by trying to ineffectively control
reality, she finds herself helpless. In the end, she is reduced to mental illness after Stanley
rapes her. In part from failing to deal effectively with the reality in which she finds herself,
she loses her mind.