Delusions In A Streetcar Named Desire

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In the play, “A Streetcar Named Desire”, by Tennessee Williams, the protagonist Blanche Dubois faces grandeur delusions when moving into her sisters house. Her sister, Stella Kowalski is married to a Polish man named Stanley who has many issues with Blanche’s personality and many conflicts arise. Throughout the play the author portrays more and more of Blanche’s inner personality and flaws. The author brings this out through Stanley, who constantly over powers her and is always trying to figure out more and more information about Blanche’s past and bad things that she has done. She is always on a defensive mode and is constantly trying to cover up her past. As time went on in the play we revealed more and more about her past. Many clues and …show more content…

She was at a point in her life where she believed her own lies. Many of the things she did were symbolic as to why she did them. For example, Blanche would always keep the light dim wherever she stayed, which was later on obvious that she did that to try her best to hide her imperfections. Another reason she did that was so that people wouldn't see her ‘aging’ skin. Her appearance was always the most important thing to her and her biggest agenda was to keep up that look. Towards the end of the play Stanley got Blanche to her breaking point and after she gets raped by him, she gets committed into a mental …show more content…

Later on there was shown that there was symbolism because covering the light was a way of her covering the rays of the ‘bad’ world from penetrating into her skin. She believed that by covering the lantern she was more secure and less receptive to being hurt. Blanche was at a point in her life where the delusions created a person in her life that she constantly spoke about that apparently had gold spouting out of his pockets and was willing to take her in when in reality the guy was a made up character in her mind. Blanche was also a dependent drinker. She constantly drank from morning to night because the buzz that she received from the alcohol was her way of coping with her preexisting stress and tension between her and Stanley in her sister’s house. The constant fear of them finding out the truth about her past also created a constant fear and a serious case of

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