When the Young Man attempts to leave the home the first time, his face is covered by a shadow. Audience members cannot clearly see that the Young Man feels out of place in the home, as indicated at this point in the play (Williams 97; scene 5). This plays into the film’s depiction of Blanche as a fragile creature looking for a man to fill the hole in her life that was created when her husband decided to kill himself. The Young Man steps back into the light when Blanche asks if he has a light. The audience is then able to clearly see that both Blanche and the Young Man are giggling and smiling as he lights her cigarette. When the Young Man turns around the second time he attempts to leave the home, his face is not covered by a shadow. While …show more content…
During the course of the play, Blanche smokes cigarettes, the two most prominent instances being with Mitch during one of their first romantic interactions and with the Young Man whom Blanche kisses without his consent. These two instances assist in portraying Blanche as a vain woman who is fixated on reliving her exciting past, in which she was constantly receiving attention from potential admirers and was in love with her husband who later committed suicide due to Blanche’s cruel mistreatment. Although the 1951 film adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire portrays Blanche as a vain creature in these scenes, the film ultimately showcases her as a helpless, sympathetic woman who is incredibly fragile due to how cruelly the world has treated her. Because of censorship restrictions placed upon the film’s producers, her husband’s homosexuality is not mentioned in the film and her own promiscuous nature is greatly reduced. Moreover, the use of lighting, shadows, and point-of-view further reinforces Blanche’s desire to relive the times where the world was not working against her. While the use of light and dark in the dialogue and stage directions in the play encourages readers to see Blanche as a vain person who is obsessed with receiving the attention she once did when she was young and beautiful, the film’s use of lighting, shadows, and point-of-view encourages viewers to see Blanche as a fragile woman who has only ever been treated in a harsh way by those she cares about and is thus deserving of
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,
Blanche’s immoral and illogical decisions all stem from her husband's suicide. When a tragedy happens in someone’s life, it shows the person’s true colors. Blanche’s true self was an alcoholic and sex addict, which is displayed when “She rushes about frantically, hiding the bottle in a closet, crouching at the mirror and dabbing her face with cologne and powder” (Williams 122). Although Blanche is an alcoholic, she tries to hide it from others. She is aware of her true self and tries to hide it within illusions. Blanche pretends to be proper and young with her fancy clothes and makeup but is only masking her true, broken self.
2. What causes Mitch and Blanche to take a "certain interest" in one another? That is, what is the source of their immediate attraction? What seems to draw them together? What signs are already present to suggest that their relationship is doomed/problematic?
Scene One of A Streetcar Named Desire What is the dramatic significance of scene one of the play A Streetcar named Desire? Scene 1 of this play has great dramatic significance. In this essay, I will be looking at key points throughout the scene that reveal the key features of the plot, characters, theme and imagery plus how it is used to give the audience a taster for what is to come.
told Allan "I saw, I know, you disgust me…"( p.96). To Allan, Blanche seemed to
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.
This gradual fall and loss of her sense of reality is truly tragic. Blanche is a person largely driven by the part of her that wants to be liked and be accepted. She cares greatly about how she is viewed and how she looks which is seen throughout the play. Even at the end when she’s living almost completely in the imaginations of her mind she asks Stella and Eunice how she looks before being taken away to an insane asylum. Tennessee Williams, the author of the play, uses all the conflict between Blanche and others, specifically Stanley, to show that fantasy is unable to overcome reality. Stanley and Blanche are both the epitomes of fantasy and reality. Stanley is a man focused on sexual drive, work, and fighting. He is exhibited as animalistic and strongly driven by his desires which is shown when he says, “Be comfortable. That's my motto up where I come from.” Stanley loves and searches after reality which is why he is so set on breaking down the facade he sees in Blanche. Blanche on the other hand is running from her reality and her past. Her fantasy of being high class and chaste is the exact opposite of her reality which is why she wants a life like that so badly. She wants marriage and stability, two things she was jealous of Stella having after arriving in New Orleans. Her fantasy she was building in her new life is shattered when Stanley is able to learn of her past and bring reality crashing down on her. Williams
She struggles with Stanley’s ideals and shields her past. The essential conflict of the story is between Blanche, and her brother-in-law Stanley. Stanley investigates Blanche’s life to find the truth of her promiscuity, ruining her relationships with Stella, and her possible future husband Mitch, which successfully obtain his goal of getting Blanche out of his house. Blanche attempts to convince Stella that she should leave Stanley because she witnessed a fight between the two. Despite these instances, there is an essence of sexual tension between the two, leading to a suspected rape scene in which one of their arguments ends with Stanley leading Blanche to the bed.
Tennessee Williams has said, “We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.” Betrayal is prevalent in life and literature and creates uncertainty. According to Williams, without questioning people, one will eventually be betrayed. Characters deceive each other and, occasionally, themselves as they try to mend their lives. In A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, betrayal is evident in every relationship — Blanche and Mitch, Blanche and Stella, and Blanche and Stanley — and contributes to the theme of uncertainty in the novel. Blanche Dubois is the ultimate example of betrayal because she ends up being betrayed and betraying others throughout the play, which serves as a basic model of the effects betrayal can have on a person.
First, light represents the ruthless reality that Blanche tries to ignore. She is incapable of dealing with the light and does everything she possibly can to avoid it. Surely, as soon as she arrives to her sister Stella’s apartment, she escapes the light: “And turn that over-light off! Turn that off! I won't be looked at in this merciless glare!”
To conclude, the author portrays Blanche’s deteriorating mental state throughout the play and by the end it has disappeared, she is in such a mental state that doctors take her away. Even at this stage she is still completely un-aware of her surroundings and the state she is in herself.
There are 3 major themes in the play A Streetcar Named Desire, the first is the constant battle between fantasy and reality, second we have the relationship between sexuality and death, and lastly the dependence of men plays a major role in this book.
...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.
In Tennessee Williams’s play, A Streetcar Named Desire he creates a very complex psychoanalytic plot. Freud's most enduring and important idea was that the human psyche (personality) has more than one aspect. Freud saw the psyche structured into three parts the id, ego and superego, all developing at different stages in our lives. These are systems, not parts of the brain, or in any way physical. The three main characters in the play can each be compared with one of the three parts of the human mind. Stanley’s character corresponds with the id, Stella’s character can be compared to the ego, and Blanche’s character would represent the superego. Looking at the play through this lens one can see Williams’s reflection of himself throughout his work with an alcoholic, abusive father of his own, a strict demanding mother, and a schizophrenic sister. Knowing this A Streetcar Named Desire brings on new bigger
Blanche Dubois is a mid-age high school English teacher. She is very naïve and thinks highly of herself. She has became very promiscuous since her husbands death, which she caused by telling him that he disgusted her because he is homosexual. She puts on the airs of a woman who has never known indignity, even though she has had many lovers and strong sexual urges. She was forced to leave Laurel, Mississippi because of her affair with a young student. Soon after Blanche arrives in New Orleans at the Kowalski apartment and eventually reveals that she is completely destitute. She avoids reality, preferring to live in her own imagination. As the play progresses, Blanche’s instability grows along with her misfortune. Stanley sees through Blanche and finds out the details of her past, destroying her relationship with his friend Mitch. Stanley also destroys what’s left of Blanche by raping her and then having her committed to an insane asylum (Williams).