STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE MOTFITS AND SYMBOLS

LIGHT 

• Blanche avoids light (in front of suitors) because she is hiding from reality - fading beauty 
• Refuses to reveal real age 
• Symbolizes Blanche's past in reality (hunted by ghost of Allan) -- Death of first love --Purpose in life --Dignity 
• Blance believes that magic rather than reality ought to be scene 9 
• Blanche's intolerate attiude towards light - shows her fading grasp on reality 
• PAST = BRIGHT LIGHT   PRESENT = DIM LIGHT                          --Bright light represents Blanche's youthful sexual innonnce   -- Dim light represents Blanche's her sexual maturity and disillisionment 

BATHING 

• Blance is constantal bathing herself - calms her 
• Baths represent her efforts to cleasne herself of her past - bathing never done page 63 
• Stanely turns to a shower after beating Stella page 33 - after he is remorsful 

DRUNKENESS 

• Stanely and Blanche drink excessibely - Stanely drinks socially while Blanche drinks sercetly to avoid reality and to put her imagionation in flight 
• Drinking leads to desturtive behavoir for both Stanely and Blanche 
• Stanely - hits Stella and rapes Blanche but he is able to withdraw from his drunken escapes 
• Blanche - leds to Blanche's departure from sainty allowing her to create fansties such as Shep Huntliegh 

SHADOWS AND CRIES 

• Page 79 shadows apper on wall behind Blanche (dramtic effect) 
• Discordant noises and jungle cries occur as Blanche descends to madness 
• These effects cambine dramatizes Blanche's final break down and departur from reality 
• When Blanche looses her sanity, she retreats entriely to her own world 
• Usally Blanche colours reality wit her wishes, hear she ignores reality all together 

THE VARSOUVIANNA POLKA 

• The song Blanche was dancing to when she lost her husband 
• Polka music plays when Blanche is feeling remorse for Allan's death - scene 1 and 6 
• Drives Blanche to distraction 
• Evoks Blanche's loss of innocence -- Husband's suicide triggered her mental decline 
• Hears music whenever she panics and loses grip on reality 

IT'S ONLY A PAPER MOON 

• Lyrics describe the way love turns the world into a 'phony' fanatasy     -- Song says if both lovers believed in a imagined reality then it is not 'make believe' 
• Sums up Blanche's approch to life 
• Believes her lies - enjoys life more because of them. And they are harmless white lies 
• LITERARY FEATURE - Willam ironcally juxtouposes Blance's fantasical understanding of herself with Stanely's description of Blanche's real nature 

MEAT 

• Scene 1 - Stanely throws meat to Stella = Sexual innuendo (holding his 'meat') 
• Hurling meat at Stella, Stanely states sexual proprietorship over Stella (can have when he wants) 
• Stella's delight in catching 'Stanely's meat@ symbolizes her sexual infatuation with him 

MEAT 

• Scene 1 - Stanely throws meat to Stella = Sexual innuendo (holding his 'meat') 
• Hurling meat at Stella, Stanely states sexual proprietorship over Stella (can have when he wants) 
• Stella's delight in catching 'Stanely's meat@ symbolizes her sexual infatuation with him