In the story a streetcar named desire

Blanche does not appear to be a predator as she flirts with the paperboy, so much as sad and pathetic. She is drawn to children, children who are innocent as she imagines herself to be. Trapped emotionally in a fictional past – was her childhood so innocent with the epic fornications of her family, or her youthful love so pure with her "degenerate" husband? - she grasps at the straws of youth that she sees in the paperboy and countless other youths before him. Mitch on the otherhand is not innocent and her flirtations with him hold a desperation like Mitch is her last chance at stability and some kind of happiness.