Streetcar Named Desire Reality Vs Illusion
- Created by: daniellexarch
- Created on: 15-05-21 20:39
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- Reality vs Illusion, Streetcar Named Desire
- Blanche
- 'It's a Barnum and Bailey world, just as phoney as it can be'
- Quote from It's only a Paper Moon', perception of living in a phoney world that doesn't exist
- 'My big sister Stella'
- Blanche feels the need to lie about her age, importance of appearances and the outside world seeing her illusion too
- hamartia of desire, following illusions that cannot truly exist leading to her dwindling into mental illness
- 'It's a Barnum and Bailey world, just as phoney as it can be'
- General Context
- American Civil War (1861-1865), concept that many writers applied. Idea of American Dream, perception of now being able to create life in new south/ reality of racial discrimination still apaprent - american DREAM is all it was.
- 'A streetcar named Desire, change to Cemeteries and get off at Elysian Fields'
- GETTING OFF THE STREETCAR, cannot maintain lies, Elysian fields is a place hereos go in underworld, reality very different. Blanche's perceptions v Stella reality
- Other Characters
- Southern Belle
- Contrast in how Blanche and Stella live their lives, both as Southern Belles from the same background but she cannot live in the present because she still wants to be the 'Belle Reve' beauty she has aged past
- Stanley
- 'He rips the paper lantern off the lightbulb. Blanche cries out as if it was herself'
- Stanley is the key driving character behind the destruction of Blanche, he enjoys 'shedding light' on her world and having reality seep in
- 'He rips the paper lantern off the lightbulb. Blanche cries out as if it was herself'
- Southern Belle
- Stage Directions
- 'Knowing he cannot see her face'
- Hiding her true self from Mitch, illusion that she is able to become someone else in the darkness that must be avoided by 'harsh light'
- 'Varsouviana Polka becomes distorted' in Blanche's mind
- acoompanies the tragic death and events that follow Blanche, her inability to hide and the loudness of both past and present in her mind
- 'Knowing he cannot see her face'
- Scene 10/11
- 'This game is a seven card stud'
- Brings to attention wild poker game/link to scene 3/deceit and bluffing that has taken place since, perhaps Stanley is lying to his wife and creating an illusion more than Blanche
- **** of Blanche is the moment that Blanche is forced to succumb to her new reality, her illusion is completely shattered and she has to be weak
- contrast to how she showed strength and ability to maintain illusion when Mitch attempted to have sex with her.
- 'This game is a seven card stud'
- Beginning of Play
- 'atmosphere of decay'
- Blanche is always accompanied by a sense of decay, New Orleans is unable to keep up her fantasy of what she wants her life to be
- 'one white and one coloured'
- link to context, fact Williams had to point it out shows it is uncommon, clashing of worlds that hadn't before, illusion of American Dream that SHOULD exist
- 'atmosphere of decay'
- Critics Quotes
- Dr Micheal Meeuwis, Uni of Warwick
- ... world of Blanche is being interrogated, smalled by the New Orleans setting, shown through cramp, tense settings that Blanche eventually succumbs to
- Micheal Hooper/ Patricia Hern
- 'Blanche holds the Wildean belief that lying, the telling of untruths, is the most beautiful form of art'
- Katrina Duerre
- 'Blanche attempts to maintain her past luxurious life by holding onto and creating new desires as opposed to accepting her new reality'
- Dr Micheal Meeuwis, Uni of Warwick
- Blanche
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