Comparison Of Elysian Fields And Belle Reve

During the 1940’s, there was a huge shift from the old southern fashion to a new and more abrasive style, which was caused by the fall of slavery. This caused many of the southerners to loss their homes due to the lack of free labor supplied to them through slavery. This loss and human desire for something better has been the theme of many plays with authors such as Tennessee Williams to take on these topics. In the play A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams contrasts the two settings of Elysian Fields and Belle Reve to emphasis the impact of loss and desire. Both Elysian Fields and Belle Reve are symbols for the new south of reality and old south of disillusion which can be see though the details of the play.
Elysian Fields and Belle

Reve contrast as much as possible when it comes to the physical settings. They both convey the stark differences in the cultures of these areas. These differences extend to the physical beauty of the areas themselves also. Belle Reve, the plantation where Blanch and Stella grew up, can be described as “A great place with white columns” (Williams 1). The plantation is said to be white, which symbolizes the purity and elegance of the old south. Elysian Fields is said to have a “Raffish charm” (Williams 1) with an “atmosphere of decay” (Williams 1), which symbolizes the new more explicit south that has decayed from purity. Stella’s new south home is also not what Blanch expected, it has a “… mostly white frame, weathered gray, with rickety outside stairs and galleries and quaint ornamental gables… faded white stairs ascend to the entrances of both” (Williams 1). This can be seen as a fall from the pure white old south to the mixed raced new south where “there is a relatively warm and easy intermingling of races” (Williams 1). The intermingling can be seen as the loss of white purity also. White southern people are no longer able to be the dominant race. There are now African Americans, Mexicans, and Polish who have taken emigrated down to the new south. The brown water of the river can represent the intermingling of the races making the area no longer pure. Also, Belle Reve in French means a sweet dream. However a sweet dream is just that, a dream, which can never become reality and that, is the difference between Belle Reve and Elysian fields in a dream you don’t desire anything because what you desire is in your dream but in Elysian Fields desire drives you because you live in reality.
The two setting of Elysian Fields and Belle Reve can be contrasted by the nature of the people who live there. In Belle Reve, the old south, Blanche live in a world of wealth and over indulgence. The people of the south had a superior view and expected more from their interactions with other people. Blanche even references this to Stella saying “You can’t have forgotten that much of our bringing up” (Williams 82) to emphasize how different living at Belle Reve was. Men were gentlemen and they respected women by complementing. The quintessential southern man by Blanche’s standards is Shep Huntleigh. He is the kind of man who has money and is courtly in has manners toward women. She even goes as far as saying:
“He is a gentleman and respects me. What he wants is companionship… A cultivated woman, a women of intelligence and breeding, can enrich a man’s life- immeasurably! ... But beauty of the mind and richness of the spirit and the tenderness of the heart…But I have been foolish- casting my pearls before swine” (Williams 83)
She dislikes the new south and dreams to be with the old south. However, what makes him different is that he was able to recover from the loss of the old south. Shep is a dream which cannot be obtained because it is unclear if Blanche actually ran into him and even so he is married. She doesn’t desire anything because he is not reality. A desire cannot be created if there is no reality to the desire. In Elysian Fields, the new south, Stella and Stanley live in a world of reality, however reality has an animal like quality to it. Blanche also quotes him as “common” (Williams 82) and she even goes as far as saying “…not one particle “of him is a gentleman. This shows how low of an opinion she has of not only him but the new south, calling him “bestial” (Williams 82). Blanche says his acts and behaves like an animal or even an apes but she also insults his friends by saying “Night falls and the other apes gather” which creates the subpar view of all those who live in Elysian Fields. However, the difference is Elysian Fields has the desire and desire is the difference between the living and dead and just like Belle Reve Blanche is dead because she can’t live in the reality of the present instead she lives in dream of the past. Therefore, her loss of Belle Reve, her sweet dream, makes her unable to cope with the reality of desire.
A great difference between Belle Reve and Elysian Fields can be seen in the way they are seen.

In Belle Reve, Blanche lived the plantation of white and pure beauty full of disillusion. The home like much of the old south was built on slavery, which shows the disillusion for the beauty. Belle Reve is quite ironic due to the fact that it was not a sweet dream for the slaves. This disillusion is then transferred onto Blanch and her actions as she tries to make those realties into her dream. This can be seen as she lies to all with her stories about her dream and she says to Mitch about her lies “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 truth, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it!” (Williams 145). She like the old south put out a façade of grandeur to hide the truth of the darkness underneath. So, in Elysian Fields, where reality is shown though colors and lights, Blanche must create a façade to survive reality. She therefore places paper lanterns and hides in the darkness to give the look of youth and pureness. However, when lanterns are torn off, like when the slavery was reveled caused, cause Blanche to crumble because the lantern is like her dream something without desire just

hope.
Throughout the play A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams demonstrates the impact of loss and desire through the contrasting of the old and new south. One can see how Blanche takes her superiority from the past and uses it to portray her dream which can never happen because her dream is dead just like her desire. The old south has dies and so does she when she cannot accept the desire that everyone must take on to live in the new south. Without this desire she is unable to accept the old south and must create lies to keep her dreams alive.