Fantasy Vs. Reality In A Streetcar Named Desire

It is clear that Blanche DuBois is willing to do what she believes is necessary to get what she wants. This often includes deceit. She feels that she needs to lie about herself in order to seem more appealing. Because Blanche is so afraid of aging, she keeps her age to herself. While she is dating Mitch, she often deceives him by never letting him see her in bright light in order to conceal her faded looks. When she comes to New Orleans, Blanche does not tell her sister that she was fired from her job; she says that she is merely taking a vacation from the job. She says this in order to keep up the fake persona she holds. Blanche is very open about her lies with her sister. “I know I fib a good deal. After all, a woman's charm is fifty per cent illusion, but when a thing is important I tell the truth.” (69) This shows that Blanche’s lifelong choice of avoiding harsh realities leads to her breakdown. With all of the lies and deceit Blanche tells, she is living an unreal existence.

     This play takes place in New Orleans Louisiana. New Orleans is a very lively town that is known as a party town and for it being a rough town. New Orleans is a town in which inhibition is suppressed and people try to have fun all the time, while not worrying about the little things in life. This is especially true for the French quarter of New Orleans, which is the setting for this play. New Orleans is know for Mardi Gras and illusion, but it is also a city of reality. Blanche does not

One of the roles of this excerpt is to provide the background towards understanding Blanche, and the justifications for her mental state and actions. It is evident that in the past she belonged to a higher class where extravagance was common. But when her family in

Blanche is committed to a tradition and a way of life that have become anachronistic in the world of Stanley Kowalski. She is committed to a code of civilization that died with her ancestral home, Belle Reve. Stella recognizes this tradition and her sister's commitment to it, but she has chosen to relinquish it and to come to terms with a world that has no place for it. In a sense, Blanche is frantic in her refusal to relinquish her concept

Stella isn’t as happy as it may seem to be. Even in scene 2, Stanley’s

Blanche Dubois is a troubled woman who throughout the play lives in a different reality, which she calls “Barnum and Bailey world”. She begins by going to New Orleans to stay with her sister Stella, and her husband Stanley for some time. At this time is

A point for Blanche is that she is fear of aging and get lost of beauty. She is scared on  appear on bright light which will reveal her look to Mitch. In scene one, the author Williams make Blanche life of sexual going down like when her husband’s suicide result from her disapproval of his homosexuality which lead to a unwanted end. In scene nine, where the Mexican woman appears selling “flowers for the dead” which made Blanche reacts with panic feeling inside of her like she don’t know what to do. The author uses Blanche experience of sex and death are link up together.

2. Blanche is the protagonist, had a great tragedy in her early life. She fell in love young and married, and discovered her husband was gay. Shortly after, her husband died and left her a young widow. “And then the searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been any light that’s stronger than this—kitchen—candle.”(scene6) After her sister left, she had to take care of family members. Their deaths resulted in the loss of her familys Belle Reve, and Blanche being displaced and thrown into a society she did not understand. After all this tragedy, Blanche preferred to live in her own made up reality of denial where she is still the belle of the party; and life is full of small talk and manners. She tries to display herself as innocent.

In this play Blanche has a praxis: She must get a companion to share her life with who can provide her with shelter, food, and financial support and that’s what makes the whole story happen. This praxis is created when two things happen: First, Blanche finding out that the man she married was having an affair with another man and he decided to shoot himself after she confronted him, and second, the loss of her house in Mississippi. These two things create her need of a shelter, financial support and food therefore she decides to stay with her sister Stella.

Blanches’ emotional state of mind is also conspicuous at the start of the play as she circumvents direct light, fearful of showing her fading looks and the light would make her vulnerable to the truth. Blanche is unable to withstand harsh light, calling the light a ‘merciless glare’(S1:pg.120*) because with Allan’s death, the light had gone out of her life and the effect this had is that she wanted dim lights hiding the reality of her painful memories. This links to the theme of dream and reality as Blanche, a delicate character, refused ‘to accept the reality of her life and attempts to live under illusion’ (*2), living on the borders of life similar to a moth which creates the image of Blanches’ fragility.

Stella, too, is a major character who lives in a world of hopes and fantasies. Stella’s tears over her sister as Blanche was taken away at the end of play reveals that Stella’s fantasies have been crushed by Stanley’s brutality. Stella calls her sister, “Blanche! Blanche! Blanche!”(142) , as if she does not want to let go of her sister. In spite of the fact that Stanley tried to justify and to relief her, Stella knows that something acquitted and abandoned had banished. She knows that her happy and humble world and her sister’s hopes had gone. Through her fantasy world, she thinks she could keep her sister for ever, but fantasy does not always work and makes life appear as it should be rather than what reality is. Also, Blanche imagines the doctor as a gentleman who is going to rescue her from a life that she imagines it as a life that does not want to accept her. Blanche finishes the play by saying, “Whoever you are—I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” (142). Blanche’s irony is demonstrated for two reasons. First of all, the doctor is not a gentleman; he came to take her to a mental health care. Second of all, strangers are not kind to her; they are kind only for trade of sex. Instead, they feel sympathy for her for creating a world where she is the victim. Blanche never perceives stranger’s kindness as something that people take advantage of. Instead, she thinks that Stanley is the one who does not treat her well, although he wanted

She seems to hint to Stella and Stanley, and therefore the audience, that she is actually much more than she seems. In scene seven, Blanche soaks in a tub, singing:

However, as we get to know Blanches character and situation, we begin to feel much sorrier for her and even begin to pity the situation she is stuck in. Having lost the family’s luxurious plantation house in Belle Reve, although we do not know whether this reclamation of the house is solely down to Blanche or just generally a family-wide debt issue that has forced Blanche from her home so cannot blame anyone specifically for this, Blanche has essentially ended up wandering around the area, looking for somewhere to stay before she ends up, literally on her sister’s doorstep at a last minute request. Her manic and slightly frenetic behaviour when she does arrive suggest that she is desperately nervous or getting increasingly desperate for support and some friendship, someone to rely on. She is however, a woman who is quite dramatic and emotional, as she is not someone who understands empathy. This is apparent when she has just arrived at Stella’s and is talking to her sister about where she lives. Now most people, when arriving in someone’s house at the last minute to stay there for an unspecified amount of time, would never dream of doing or saying something to insult the host. Yet Blanche, when asking Stella how many rooms there are in the apartment says ‘What? Two rooms did you say?’ in a quite demeaning and slightly insulting tone and to follow this comment up she laughs sharply, in an almost

            Blanche is not really lost in illusions; rather she uses them as camouflage. She wears them as she wears her clothes and her glass necklaces, as protection from a reality that she finds horrifying. One must not think of Blanche as just a fragile, delicate blossom. There is a fierce desire in her for life at any cost. Her masquerade may

She had many ways to gussy up, Blanche always needed compliments and admiration to get throughout the day. Stella exclaims “and admire her dress and tell her she’s looking wonderful. That’s important with Blanche” (Williams 33). In the dimness preferred “she smells sweet and appears on the outside” (Clough n.p.). Blanche owned pieces of clothing that seem to be expensive but really were just cheap pieces of clothing. Not so promising to Stanley, “look at these furs that she comes here to preen herself in! Whats this here? A solid gold dress, I believe! And this one! What is these here? Fox pieces! Genuine fox fur-pieces, a half a mile long” (Williams 35). Blanche also had what was assumed to be expensive jewelry collection but was just simple costume jewelry. “And diamonds! A crown for an impress!” (Williams 36). “She perceives herself as a beautiful object which has to be properly decorated in order to sell well” (Oklopcic n.p.). Even with a great outer appearance Blanche was still ugly on the inside and she knew this. She hated looking at herself in the mirror or being in front of Mitch without being properly dressed. Blanche portrayed herself as having manners, she expected men to stand at her appearance and grant her with