Illusions in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire

Illusions in A Streetcar Named Desire

In Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire, there are many

examples where the characters are using illusions in an attempt to escape

reality.

The best example is found by looking to the main character.

Blanche Dubois was a troubled woman who throughout the play lives her life

in illusions. The story begins with Blanche going to New Orleans to stay

with her sister Stella, and her husband Stanley for a while. Here, the

illusions are revealed and the battle between the illusions and the

characters will begin. What initially leads to her illusions is love.

When she was young, "sixteen, I made the discovery - love. All at once and

much, much too completely" (1368). She met Allan Grey, the perfect man -

he had "a nervousness, a softness and tenderness which wasn't like a man's,

although he wasn't the least bit effeminate" (1368).

However, as we are eventually are shown, this illusion wouldn't

last forever. The young couple got married and, to Blanche, were falling

more and more in love, when one day "coming into a room that I thought was

empty" (1368), this illusion would be shattered. In this room were her

husband, Allan, and a older male friend of his. Allan Grey was gay. Soon,

Blanche realised that all along he had been trying to let her know and get

"the help he needed but couldn't speak of! He was in the quicksands and

clutching at me - but I wasn't holding him out, I was slipping in with

him!" (1368). She was falling farther into the illusion with each passing

second with her love, because she couldn't really believe that he was with

her and was for real.

Allan was in fact an illusion himself, by trying to appear straight

to everyone. At first, they would try to deny it but the illusion would

soon be totally destroyed when Blanche let it slip while they were dancing

that "I saw! I know! You disgust me..." (1369). With this, Allan runs

outside and kills himself. I believe that Allan killed himself more so

because he realised Blanche would no longer help him than because she knew.

He believed that if there was anyone who would help him make it through

this whole ordeal, it would be Blanche.

Because of all this, Blanche fell into another illusion. She

figured that if she were loved again, the way Allan and her were meant to

be, then she could be happy again. So, "after the death of Allan -

intimacies with strangers was all I seemed able to fill my empty heart