Street_Car_Named_Desire

Blanche creates a world of illusion because the real world is too painful. Do you agree' ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ by Tennessee Williams depicts the life of the main protagonist, Blanche Dubois and her decline into insanity through a series of events. This is first portrayed when We are introduced to Blanche when she shows up to her sister Stella’s house where she lives with her husband, Stanley Kowalski. From then on, Blanche invents a world of her own fantasies as she wants to cover up the harsh truths of reality. She is too frail to deal with what has become of her life and she relies on illusion to break away from it. Blanche has an attachment to her past life. Her life is an example of how one tragic event can damage the future. Her refusal to let go of the past and embrace the real world makes her undependable. When Blanche was sixteen, she fell in love with a sensitive, young boy, Allan who filled her life with happiness and delight, ‘When I was sixteen, I made the discovery – love’. Her happiness soon turned to sadness when Blanche uncovers the truth about her 'young boy' was a homosexual. Blanche’s shocked and cruel words to him ‘You disgust me!’ resulted in his suicide. She forced herself to believe that she was responsible for his death. Followed by her love's death, were the deaths of her relatives. This forced her to sell the family mansion, ‘Belle Reeve’ in Laurel. To assist her in breaking away from the despair in her life, Blanche turns to alcohol and meaningless affairs with men at the Hotel Flamingo. She does this to herself to avoid the truth in her life. An affair with a seventeen year old boy and a bad reputation ended her teaching career. This demonstrates Blanche's concept of what she believes is the real world. As an escapist, Blanche, states, ‘I don’t want realism, I want magic’. She runs away from the truth in the same way she hides from lights. Her fragile and weak nature cannot tolerate the reality of her life as she finds it too distressing. So, Blanche persuades herself that she is ‘pure’ as ‘inside, I never lied’. She dismisses the fact that she has been involved in any physical encounters and sees herself as prim and proper. Her attempt to portray herself as virtuous and noble quashes any chance of marriage to Mitch. Mitch is one of Stanley’s good friends who Blanche is attracted to. They fall in love with Mitch believing that Blanche is pure. During there relationship, Blanche acts her ‘pure’ self well and explains to Mitch that she’s ‘not easy’ like many girls. But, when Mitch uncovers the reality about Blanche and her past he is appalled. He believes she is too unclean to marry, ‘I don’t think I want to marry you anymore…No, you’re not clean enough to bring into the house with my mother’. After this incident, Mitch leaves Blanche and it causes her to be pushed on the edge of insanity. Blanche lives in a world of her own. She cannot tolerate a rude comment or a harsh light. After Allan’s death, Blanche believes that the ‘light’ has gone out in her life. As a consequence to this, she prefers to live in the dark, ‘The dark is comforting to me’. This darkness is the ideal set up for her fantasy world that to her excludes all pain. It also masks the truth of her appearance and age. Blanche’s brother-in-law, Stanley is unable to understand her. He resents her and he is a man who always wants the truth. Blanche is seen as a threat to Stanley and Stella’s marriage as he believes Blanche is filling his wife’s head with nonsense, ‘Them kind of words have been on your tongue and your sister’s too much around here!’Stanley can not forgive Blanche for what he believes she has caused and swears he will seek revenge. ‘We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning’, this is when Blanche was raped by Stanley. This traumatic event causes Blanche to have no sense of reality at all, she is mentally unstable. When Blanche attempts to confront Stella about the rape, Stella supposedly doesn’t believe her and uses the reality against her to conclude that Blanche is insane. Stella uses this opportunity to send Blanche away to a mental institution so she can save her marriage. Blanche is a brave woman. She was unfortunately, incapable of letting go of the past and that turned out to be her biggest flaw. As a result of all that has happened Blanche cannot come to terms with the present or future and decides to live in her fantasy world instead. This dream that she masks behind eventually destroys her as a result of the real world being too painful.