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Dichotomy between Fantasy and Reality: Blurring Barriers in Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named

Desire

Galeano Morales, Pilar

Literatura Norteamericana: Teatro S.XX

Professor María Eugenia Díaz

In this Tennessee’s Williams work, there are noticeable some conflicting elements all related with

the notions of illusion and realness. The old aristocratic South represented by Blanche in contrast with the

new working-class South in the role of Stanley, desire carrying to death, and the interplay between light and

darkness are the main dichotomies in the play. This paper aims to illustrate how the interaction of opposing

forces such as reality and fantasy work in this play and how they are complemented and related with other

pivotal concepts presented in this work, in order to justify Blanche du Bois’ vision of reality.

Blanche and Stanley are the two central opposing characters, Blanche is the absolute characterization

of illusion while Stanley is intended to take Blanche out of that fantasy she lives in, but he does it in a brutal

mode, creating by this way an extremely powerful divergence. Blanche mentally lives in the old aristocratic

South; she does not want to admit the fact that times are changing and the lost of Belle Reve should have

been an inflecting point for her to be aware of that change. Nevertheless, she refuses to get out of her

fantasy, she is not able to realise that she is no longer a refined woman. This denial of the new reality is

greatly appreciated in the second scene of the play:

BLANCHE. Oh, I guess he's just not the type that goes for jasmine perfume, but maybe he's what we

need to mix with our blood now that we've lost Belle Reve. We thrashed it out. I feel a bit shaky, but

I think I handled it nicely, I laughed and treated it all as a joke. (Williams 46)

She compares Stanley with the kind of men she is used to deal with, and she is trying to convince

herself that she is not affected by the loss of her family’s ancient property, the disparity with Stanley

remains as Zhang states: “Blanche was the representative of the Old South’s intelligent romantics and

commitment to appearances. Stanley stood for the New South’s cruel chase after prosperity and financial
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realism” (109). While Blanche is still romanticizing a South that no longer exists, Stanley expresses the

rising industrial working-class’ realism.

The character of Stanley’s main purpose on the play relies on the necessity of taking Blanche out of

that fantasy she has introduced herself in. He represents the sorrowness of the most brutal reality, and he is a

threat for the only concerns that makes Blanche alive: imagery, literature and a worshipped and idealized

past. The best illustration on the play of this idea, is the fact that Stanley is constantly interrupting Blanche’s

baths, which she uses to purify herself:

BLANCHE. [singing in the bathroom] "From the land of the sky blue water, They brought a captive

maid!"

(…)

STANLEY. She didn't show you no papers, no deed of sale or nothing like that, huh? (Williams 33-

34)

Besides, there are pieces of the song Paper Moon mixing with Stanley’s accusations of Blanche

keeping for herself the money of having sold Belle Reve. This confrontation between these two characters,

“is an externalization of the conflict that goes on within Blanche between illusion and reality” (Londré 55).

Reality is constantly threatening to destroy the illusionary world, in fact, when Blanche tries to deny reality

through fantasy, the truth arises as a revengeful force. This threat is embodied in Stanley, being him a

portrayal of the cruel and savage side of the real world. Along with that, Stanley and therefore, delusion,

defeats Blanche at the end of the play due to the fact that she is handed over to the completely opposed

energy; science and medicine, her fantasy is by this way categorized as a disease: madness.

Another important aspect is a dichotomy and also a relation present in the story between four

concepts: desire and illusion are coordinated throughout the play while they are opposed to death and reality

respectively. The illusion of desire leads to the reality of both literal and metaphorical death, this fact results

on Blanche diving again into these lust and fantasy world to forget the stern truth. The departure point of

Blanche tumbling into this mad illusion, was her husband Allan’s suicide because of his homosexuality;
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Allan’s desire took the both of them to death, Allan’s death was literal, while Blanche’s was metaphorical.

Due to this delusion, she started having sexual affairs with strangers and usually younger men, being them

as a resemblance of her lost young husband:

BLANCHE. Yes, I had many intimacies with strangers. After the death of Allan--intimacies with

strangers was all I seemed able to fill my empty heart with.... I think it was panic, just panic, that

drove me from one to another, hunting for some protection--here and there, in the most--unlikely

places-- even, at last, in a seventeen-year-old boy but--somebody wrote the superintendent about

it--"This woman is morally unfit for her position!" (Williams 136)

This outcome demonstrates that for Blanche, desire and death are inseparable; she is obsessed with

that matter. Before Allan’s death, she was willing to live a life of love with no sex just for being with Allan,

but due to her metaphorical death, she started living a loveless sex life: “Blanche’s first and only marital

affair does the opposite. It plunges her into dark depths of self- denial, guilt, revulsion and antipathy, leading

her to a sagittal path of nymphomania and prostitution” (Genchea 34). Blanche’s loss of sense is clearly

devoted to a misplace of sexual control and fear of mortality.

Regarding as well the dichotomy between death and desire, there are the symbols of the names of the

streetcars and Kowalski’s’ house; Desire and Cemeteries are the transports that carry Blanche to the Elysian

Fields in a parallelism with the sexual desire and her metaphorical death due to Allan’s loss that brought her

to her sister’s home:

BLANCHE. They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and then transfer to one called

Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at-Elysian Fields! (Williams 11)

According to Greek’s mythology, the Elysian Fields are a paradise, a land for the dead heroes,

which is paradoxical because the Kowalski’s house is far from being a paradise for Blanche, and she is

pretty distant from being a hero: “We will see her progress from the sexual “desire” that caused her to lose

her job as a schoolteacher, to a mere desire for “rest” to the burial of her hope for redemption, to her going

mad, which might be seen as a crossing over to a “paradise” beyond personal responsibility (thus the

allusion to the classical Greek concept of the Elysian Fields” (Londré 49). Therefore, it is suggested that
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Williams carefully chose those names in order to illustrate that obsession Blanche had with the link between

death and desire and to foreshadow her fate.

The third major opposition in A Streetcar Named Desire, remains on darkness and light, that are

correspondently identified with illusion and reality. Blanche compares her love with a blinding light, that

because of its spark, does not allow her to see the truth. That is what happened her with Allan:

BLANCHE. It was like you suddenly turned a blinding light on something that had always been half

in shadow, that's how it struck the world for me. (Williams 108)

She loved him so suddenly that she was not aware of that “half shadow” Allan was hidden in:

homosexuality. When she realized of that harsh reality, it was too late for both Allan and Blanche to escape

from that shadow; light was over for her, that is the reason why she feels at the present moment the play is

set in that light is something harmful for her, she wants to live in a dark false illusion. Stanley is the first one

that lightens Blanche’s sham, as Massoud and Ahmad expresses: “Light for Stanley functions like a lie

detector and reveals for him the truth which Blanche attempts to hide” (33). When Stanley tells Mitch about

Blanche’s secret past, he is throwing light to that illusion.

Besides, Mitch also forces Blanche to get out from the dark. Blanche always hides from the light

when she is with Mitch, when they first met, she ask him to put a paper lantern over the light:

BLANCHE. I bought this adorable little colored paper lantern at a Chinese shop on Bourbon. Put it

over the light bulb I Will you, please?

MITCH. Be glad to.

BLANCHE. I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.

(Williams 60)

She wants to hide her actual age, she is trying to seduce Mitch with her best weapon: fantasy and

illusion, nevertheless, she is attempting to reach a realistic goal: getting a husband in order to take care of

her and love her. However, is that illusion what makes her losing Mitch’s love, but he finally lightens her:
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MITCH. What it means is I've never had a real good look at you, Blanche. Let's turn the light on

here.

BLANCHE [fearfully]. Light? Which light? What for?

MITCH: This one with the paper thing on it. [He tears the paper lantern off the light bulb. She utters

a frightened gasp.] (Williams 134)

Blanche knows since the moment Mitch appears in scene that she has been discovered, but her

imaginative nature makes her avoid the truth and keeping for as long as she could into the darkness of the

weak lights where she feels safe. Besides, “it is significant that Mitch is the one who both installs the paper

lantern and, in Scene 9, removes it, for these actions define the period during which he sees Blanche as she

wants him to see her, under the spell of an illusion she creates” (Londré 52). He is decided to demonstrate

Blanche that he has no longer any respect for her. That is the reason why he takes off the lantern, it is a

metaphorical violation of Blanche, as she has said before that she could not stand a naked light. By this way

he breaks every illusion and magic remained in Blanche.

To conclude, it could be said that illusion and reality are the driving and most powerful motifs in this

Tennessee Williams’ work and that they are present in every contrapositions in the play. It seems clear to me

that Stanley is the antagonist of Blanche and of what she stands for: the old aristocratic South. They cannot

stand each other, and Stanley makes every effort he is capable of in order to expel Blanche out of her life

and Stella’s. It is also fundamental the fixation Blanches has with the junction between death and desire, all

as a consequence of her traumatic past. Along with that, Desire and Cemeteries leading to Elysian Fields,

appear to be a pivotal symbol with the aim of understanding Blanche’s obsession. Also, it is very noticeable

in this play the importance of light and darkness and their correspondence with reality and illusion: Blanche

hides in the dark of covered lamps as well she does with her fantasies. Lastly, it could be said that the

correspondence of opposing terms in this play creates a blurry barrier between them.
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Works Cited

Londré, Felicia H. "A Streetcar Running Fifty Years." The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams,

Cambridge. Edited by Matthew C. Roudané. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006,

doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.usal.es/10.1017/CCOL0521495334.004.

Masoud, Ahmadi Mosaabad, and Ahmad Gholi. "The Role of Symbol in Delivering the Theme of Conflict

between Reality and Illusion in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire." English Language

and Literature Studies 1.2 (2011): 31.

Williams, Tennessee. "A Streetcar Named Desire. 1947." New York: New Directions (2004).

Zhang, Qiang. "An Explanation on Blanche’s Tragedy in A Streetcar Named Desire." Studies in Literature

and Language 8.3 (2014): 106-110.