Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire is a brillant play which expresses America as a corrupted and desolate world. Through the eyes of Blanche DuBois, an incongruous figure in the play, she constantly lies to escape the harsh reality of her past and present. However, Stanley Kowalski, an animal breathing brute, tears down her vision and destroys her every last bit of hope of her dreams. Tennessee Williams intends to reveal the ruthless state that America has now become. He wants to illustrate that the people’s desires are violent, shallow, and submissive. Many people, such as Blanche, still hang on to the past and have a hard time distinguishing between fantasy and reality. Williams uses different strategies to enhance these ideas in his play. He commonly

uses offstage action like polka music to represent Blanche’s state of mind or scenes happening outside of Stanley’s home to display the cruel New Orleans. Props are also often used to further enhance the play’s context and phrases. Therefore, Williams’s idea that the inability to overcome reality is effectively conveyed through dramatic techniques of offstage action and props.
One way Williams indicated his idea of wanting of hang onto the past is by offstage action in the play.

Blanche has the desire to stay young and pure. When Blanche arrives to Stanley and Stella’s house, she is often “bathing...her dress, a flowered print, is laid out on Stella’s bed” (32). In the past, Blanche used to be involved in several sexual acts for comfort after her husband died and her long and frequent baths symbolizes her want to constantly “cleanse” herself from these sins and shame. She wants to continue feeling innocent and rid of any nerves she feels. Williams has her do this offstage to indirectly present his character as someone who cannot face reality and will do anything to keep herself immersed in her fantasy. Furthermore, the death of her husband has left her mentally scarred as music is heard offstage whenever she is anxious or tense. During Blanche’s conversation with Mitch as he confronts her for her lies, “She touches her forehead vaguely. The polka tunes starts up again...a distant revolver shot is heard” (114). The music heard by the audience is actually all in Blanche’s head. Throughout the play, Blanche undergoes a lot of anxiety and stress trying to keep her fantasy real but ultimately fails as she breaks down and starts hallucinating in her past, thinking they are reality. The polka music is specifically used because it relates to when she and her husband were listening to before he committed suicide; the continuous music through the play just

demonstrates how this memory haunts her. Williams also strongly suggests his idea when he decided to show outside crime acts outside of Stanley’s house through a transparent wall. Before Stanley rapes Blanche, there is a moment in the scene when the background action displays “a prostitute has rolled a drunkard...Negro woman...with a sequin bag which the prostitute dropped earlier” (128). This offstage scene is vital as Williams makes the effort to reveal the crimes happening on the outside. He wants to show that this is not only happening to Blanche and that others are experiencing the struggle of facing reality. Rape, robbery, or alcoholics are all tragedies affecting so many others and Williams is not afraid to expose the true reality of America that is now in the state of corruption and brutality. Overall, he effectively uses offstage action to communicate the harsh reality and why some people may want to stay in the past.
Props is another thing Williams used to signify his idea of the incapability to accept reality.

To keep her image of being wealthy and of high class, Blanche owns a lot of fake jewelry. As Stanley rummages through Blanche’s trunk, he questions about her accessories, “Pearls...bracelets of solid gold, And diamonds! A crown for an empress! A rhinestone tiara!” (36). Stanley sees right through Blanche’s phony world and searches for evidence to prove it. Williams use of props to portray fake jewelry dramatically illustrate Blanche’s dream of youth as she continues putting these on because of its illusion to happiness but the fakeness of them only confirm that her fantasy will never exist in this new America. Consequently, Blanche also avoids light. When Mitch first meets Blanche, she has him take the “little colored paper lantern...and put it over the light bulb” (55). The light in this case represents truth and reality. Blanche will not face the light directly and often shades it with a lamp cover. She intentionally avoids showing her real face and age in fear of losing her persona. After meeting Mitch, she realizes that he could be a possible suitor for her in her fantasy world and has him cover it to create shadows and illusions that hide the reality. Near the end of the play, Blanche starts to worry about the cleanliness of things she has consumed. Several weeks after the rape, Blanche continues taking baths and became hysterical about an “unwashed grape” that was offered

by Eunice (136). At this point, she struggles to maintain her imaginary world and no longer feels pure. She is tainted by the brutal acts of Stanley and tries to escape it by consuming purity internally now. The unwashed grape sends her to another hallucination about dying at sea. Williams purposely implements this scene because he wants to convey that she is truly broken and that she can no longer differentiate between fantasy and reality; to her, they are mixed together. This further demonstrates how Williams incorporates household items to express deeper meanings of the idea that the reality is too crude to bear and the want to escape from it.
Overall, through the use of offstage action and props, the author effectively conveys his idea that America has changed, but some cannot accept the existence of it. He continually portrays the state and behavior of Blanche through indirect actions and her desires through materialistic objects. Williams explores the bitter truth that America cannot conform back to a more peaceful era it used to be where old traditions that Blanche longed for is valued. In retrospect, life must go on. As Blanche once said, “Death...the opposite is desire”.