A Streetcar Named Desire By Tennessee Williams: Literary Analysis

The harsh truth of reality can permanently change one’s perspective of the world. When people experience difficulties in life like loss and untruthful relationships, they sometimes struggle to come to terms with the sadness and truths of those experiences. They may lie to other people and themselves in order to hide their pain, and sometimes illusions of the fantasy world are created in order to cope with those miserable experiences. In the Southern Gothic novel, A Streetcar Named Desire written by Tennessee Williams, Blanche is a deceitful school teacher from Laurel, Mississippi who tends to be incapable of facing the reality of life especially the moment when she witness the death of her beloved husband and eventually blames herself for his

The motif of light and white continues on page 8, when Eunice and Blanche enters Stella’s house, the narrator says, “a light goes on behind the blind, turning it light blue.” The author purposely crafts Blanche to be staged in the shadows and near the dark in order in order to give the impression that she does not desire to be seen in the light because of the consequences of her flaws being revealed to the public and her purity are tinting. She would much rather prefer to hide in the darkness in order to hide her secrets. The author wants to use Blanche to show that some people who are self-conscious about themselves tend to feel more comfortable in darkness rather than light in order for their flaws to be unrevealed. In this scene, the author continues to reveal bits of information about the main character’s hidden side through the white and light imagery, on page 15, after Blanche and Stella reunited, she says to Stella, “you messy child you, you’ve spilt something on that pretty white lace collar.” The author purposely crafts

Through this motif he seems to suggest that in order to cope with trauma, some people feel driven to take certain measures in order to survive in the reality. For an example, on page 36, after Stanley and Stella finish having an discussion about Blanche, the narrator says, “He lights a cigarette.” The author purposely crafts Blanche to be staged in the dark in order to show that she much more desires for others to see the flawless side of her in order to feel ideal from her fantasies. The author uses Blanche to show that people take long showers in order to feel clean, but in reality, traumatized people take long showers in order to cleanse themselves from their terrible past experiences. On page 57, after Mitch arrives, he acted by “He strikes a match and moves closer.” On page 59, when Blanche was describing the origin of her name she said, “It’s a French name. It means woods and Blanche means white, so the two together means whitewoods.” On page 60, Blanche says, “I bought this adorable little colored paper lantern at a Chinese shop on Bourbon. Put it over the light bulb!” The author reveals that Blanche is flirting with Mitch which creates an illusion of fantasy while telling fibs in order to not reveal her flaws and imperfection to him. The author uses Blanche to show that some people who has flaws tends to be self-conscious