In Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire,” paper lanterns, kitchen candles, and multicolored strobes reveal the various shades of reality surrounding Blanch DuBois. When Blanche visits her sister, Stella, and Stanley Kowalski’s modest apartment in New Orleans, tension regarding her mental stability immediately emerges. Blanche cloaks the apartment’s harsh light with a paper lantern, which initially suggests the fervency of her insecurity regarding physical beauty; however, this dim light eventually evolves to expose her unwillingness to embrace reality, one of Blanche’s principal character flaws that stems from the devastating suicide of her former husband. While recounting her husband’s tragedy, Blanche heavily relies on light imagery to accentuate the suicide’s influence on her existence. Towards the play’s conclusion, Mitch destroys the paper lantern and forces Blanche to candidly expose her deteriorated mentality, thus commencing Blanche’s downfall into hysteria. Blanche DuBois’ aversion to light, an element which epitomizes the concept of transparent reality, reveals her superficiality and exposes her capricious mentality, ultimately perpetuating the theme that willful deception leads to unstable reality.
Initially, readers detect a correlation between Blanche’s focus on physical attractiveness and her necessity for paper lanterns; however, diction quickly reveals that her desire for dim lighting is rooted in her mental state rather than in her physical one. Upon meeting Mitch, who had come to play poker with Stanley, Blanche asks him to shade the light with a paper lantern and says she “can’t stand a naked light, any more than…a rude remark of a vulgar action,” (Williams, 60.) Although Blanche attempts to regard th...
... middle of paper ...
...most deeply afflicted by her distorted reality, is deemed insane, revealing that stability can only be maintained through a transparency.
To maintain sanity, Blanche establishes the facade of a proper southern woman; however, when others slowly realize her deception, Blanche grows increasingly unstable until she is forced into the light that illuminates her withered reality. This illumination marks the commencement of Blanche’s demise, for despite claiming that she lies for the sake of others, Blanche is incapable of accepting reality’s hardships. Blanche initially sought refuge in deception; however, masking truth caused her such instability that she was no longer capable of candidly existing. Throughout the play, tension between light and darkness reveals the failures of deception and exposes that stability can only exist through the total embrace of reality.
However Blanche is unable to get attention or protection throughout the story be cause of all the lies she's told. She also ends up hurting the people who are closest to her when she tries to hide who she really is. For example when she says " I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes magic!
This can be symbolized by light. Blanche hates to be seen by Mitch, her significant other, in the light because it exposes her true identity. Instead, she only plans to meet him at night or in dark places. Also, she covers the lone light in Stella and Stanley’s apartment with a Chinese paper lantern. After Blanche and Mitch get into a fight, Mitch rips off the lantern to see what Blanche really looks like. Blanche angrily replies that she’s sorry for wanting magic. In the play, Blanche states “I don’t want realism, I want magic! [..] Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it!”(Williams 117). Blanche wants to escape reality, but this only leads to her self-destruction. It is the men in her life and past experiences that is the main cause of her self - destruction. One of these being the death of her young love, Allen Grey. During their marriage, Blanche, attached to the hip to this man, walked in on him with another man. She then brought the incident up at a bad time; soon after, Allen took his own life, which I believe was the first step to this so called “self-destruction. Blanche could never forgive herself of this. This is the truth of her past, therefore,
In Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, he uses a Chinese paper lantern to symbolize Blanche’s own insecurities. Some would say that the lantern is just used as a prop but in actuality it is a reflection of how Blanche feels about herself. The lantern is used to cover up something that is not so appealing just as Blanche uses clothes and other frivolous things to mask herself. Blanche takes all of her insecurities and buries them underneath her cheap fashion and lies so she may seem more desirable to others. The Chinese paper lantern serves as an important symbol of Blanche because it puts her insecurities onto, quite literally, a piece of paper. All the light bulb needed to look more attractive was the paper lantern and “lo and behold the place has turned into Egypt,” (Williams 96). With this quote, Stanley supports the symbolism of the lantern because it directly relates to that of Blanche and how she is always trying to hide herself from everyone. Blanche would prefer to be seen as something that she is not just to please others, and if she must lie to do that then she is more than willing to do so. The Chinese paper lantern enters the play as a simple prop but throughout the play becomes one of the most important symbolic elements in A Streetcar Named Desire.
Many authors like Aldous Huxley have come to state that “ignorance is bliss” in their own manners. In A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, this message is passed on down to the audience through the characterization of Blanche DuBois. Blanche is a character who had her fall from grace. Coming from a rich family, she lost all of her wealth; and, thus, came to live with her sister, Stella. However, mentally, she still lives in the past. In other words, she’s ignorant of the present. This ignorance comes to be the foundation of her character.
Throughout Tennessee Williams’s play “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Blanche Dubois exemplified several tragic flaws. She suffered from her haunting past; her inability to overcome; her desire to be someone else; and from the cruel, animalistic treatment she received from Stanley. Sadly, her sister Stella also played a role in her downfall. All of these factors ultimately led to Blanche’s tragic breakdown in the end. Blanche could not accept her past and overcome it.
In this play the character blanche exhibits the theme of illusion. Blanche came from a rocky past. Her young husband killed himself and left her with a big space in her heart to fill. Blanche tried to fill this space with the comfort of strangers and at one time a young boy. She was forced to leave her hometown. When she arrives in New Orleans, she immediately begins to lie and give false stories. She takes many hot bathes, in an effort to cleanse herself of her past. Blanche tries also to stay out of bright lights. She covers the light bulb (light=reality) in the apartment with a paper lantern. This shows her unwillingness to face reality but instead live in an illusion. She also describes how she tells what should be the truth. This is a sad excuse for covering/lying about the sinful things she has done. Furthermore, throughout the story she repeatedly drinks when she begins to be faced with facts. All these examples, covering light, lying, and alcoholism show how she is not in touch with reality but instead living in a fantasy world of illusion.
By believing her own lie, Blanche disconnects herself from the reality in which she lives. She becomes so immersed in her lies that she herself is unable to tell where her fantasies end and reality begins. It is no longer a lie to maintain her appearance but a delusion that she believes in. In her mind she is not an aging women with few social contacts but a proper young lady with friends of high standings.
This statement also emphasises much of Blanche’s own views on sorrow and explains how it has affected her life since she has made the comment from personal experience. To conclude, Tennessee Williams’ dramatic use of death and dying is an overarching theme in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire,’ from which everything about Blanche’s character has formed from. Without the death of Allan, Blanche would not have resorted to prostitution and the brief affairs with strangers, also the deaths of her family have driven Blanche to Stella’s where she is “not wanted” and “ashamed to be”. Therefore these dramatic deaths have lead to the past which comes back to haunt
In Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire, main character Blanche Dubois to begin with seems to be a nearly perfect model of a classy woman whose social interaction, life and behavior are based upon her sophistication. The play revolves around her, therefore the main theme of drama concerns her directly. In Blanche is seen the misfortune of a person caught between two worlds-the world of the past and the world of the present-unwilling to let go of the past and unable, because of her character, to come to any sort of terms with the present.
Blanche’s lampshade is the filter for all the harsh realities of life that she would rather not deal with. In a scene with Stanley’s friend Mitch, Blanche tells Mitch to cover up a light bulb with a Chinese lampshade, “I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action” (1837). In this scene Blanche blatantly tells the other characters and the a...
Firstly, the reader may initially feel Blanche is completely responsible or at least somewhat to blame, for what becomes of her. She is very deceitful and behaves in this way throughout the play, particularly to Mitch, saying, ‘Stella is my precious little sister’ and continuously attempting to deceive Stanley, saying she ‘received a telegram from an old admirer of mine’. These are just two examples of Blanches’ trickery and lying ways. In some ways though, the reader will sense that Blanche rather than knowingly being deceitful, actually begins to believe what she says is true, and that she lives in her own dream reality, telling people ‘what ought to be the truth’ probably due to the unforgiving nature of her true life. This will make the reader begin to pity Blanche and consider whether these lies and deceits are just what she uses to comfort and protect herself. Blanche has many romantic delusions which have been plaguing her mind since the death of her husband. Though his death was not entirely her fault, her flirtatious manner is a major contributor to her downfall. She came to New Orleans as she was fired from...
One of the first major themes of this book is the constant battle between fantasy and reality. Blanche explains to Mitch that she fibs because she refuses to accept the hand fate has dealt her. Lying to herself and to others allows her to make life appear as it should be rather than as it is. Stanley, a practical man firmly grounded in the physical world, disdains Blanche’s fabrications and does everything he can to unravel them. The relationship between Blanche and Stanley is a struggle between appearances and reality. It propels the play’s plot and creates an overarching tension. Ultimately, Blanche’s attempts to rejuvenate her life and to save Stella from a life with Stanley fail. One of the main ways the author dramatizes fantasy’s inability to overcome reality is through an explorati...
...es and thinks that her hopes will not be destroyed. Thirdly, Blanche thinks that strangers are the ones who will rescue her; instead they want her for sex. Fourthly, Blanche believes that the ones who love her are trying to imprison her and make her work like a maid imprisoned by them. Fifthly, Blanche’s superiority in social status was an obscure in her way of having a good social life. Last but not least, Blanche symbolizes the road she chose in life- desire and fantasy- which led her to her final downfall.
One cant imagine how it must feel to lose the ones they love and hold dear, but to stay afterwards and mourn the loss of the many is unbearable. Blanche has had a streak of horrible luck. Her husband killing himself after she exposed her knowledge about his homosexuality, her advances on young men that led to her exile and finally her alcoholism that drew her life to pieces contemplated this sorrow that we could not help but feel for Blanche throughout the drama. Blanche’s desire to escape from this situation is fulfilled when she is taken away to the insane asylum. There she will have peace when in the real world she only faces pain.
Blanche uses her fantasies as a shield; and her desires as her motivation to survive. Her fading beauty being her only asset and chance of finding stability. Stella’s relationship with Stanley also emphasis the theme Williams created in this book. They’re only bond is physical desire and nothing at all intellectual or deep rooted. Tennessee Williams exemplifies that their relationship which only springs from desire doesn’t make it any weaker. He also creates a social dichotomy of the relationship between death and desire.