A Streetcar Named Desire (Reality Vs. Illusion)

Let's discuss the play 'A Streetcar Named Desire', Shall we?

Who Are You To Tell Me That The Sky Isn't Grey, When I'm Colorblind

Although lies are clearly heralded as stories of fiction, not many people tend to venture within the mind of the beholder, where the lies are being generated. It's easy to write off a person, as a straight up fabricator, when a story doesn't add up to your reality. Yet, is it still a lie if the person who created the lie, believes that it is real? These fine lines, where lies and truth can both coexist, is the premise for Williams play, "A Street Car Named Desire", where we are to embrace illusion and reality with the same importance. In this play, reality is what shows to be victorious in the end. Stanley forces a very real reality onto Blanche that obstructs her vision of illusion, which is where her reality was altered and lost.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, did it really make a sound? This basic question of perspective is the same that can be applied to the clash of both Stanley's and Blanche's worlds. The trick to analyzing this theme, is as easy as bringing in another example, like science that is "closely tied to the change from a Newtonian to a quantum mechanical world-view" (Hegerfeldt 326). General relativity and quantum physics both coexist with each other, however, we only get to witness the general relativity part, because those are rules of our physical world that we can measure, thus, making it as real as you and I. The world of quantum physics is just as real, yet cannot be seen, nor measured. But, just because something cannot be seen, nor measured, does it make it that much less true? Blanche's case shows us that "realism proves similarly insufficient to capture the mystical interior universes which, to her, are just as real as the material world" (Hegerfeldt 326). To Blanche, these lies she feels or says at the moment, very well may be just as real as a physical form of something, to her. Reality is what we see, however, illusions are, sometimes, more powerful and help create the imaginary of what reality really is. Reality is only as real as you allow it to be, however, Blanche's lies do finally start to creep up on her. To the point of Mitch finally calling her out, forcing her to convey the truth about her multiple partners, which only resulted in him saying that "you're not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother" (Scene 9).

"The 'truth' about people is not static" (Smail). It's the variety of honesty and deception that makes life so interesting for this play. Blanche, holds a facade over herself that she is superior and a higher class in comparison to Stanley when she said, "You're simple, straightforward and honest, a little bit on the primitive side I should think" (Scene 2). Blanche, sharing that "after all, a woman's charm is fifty percent illusion, but when a thing is important I tell the truth, and this is the truth" (Scene 2). We later found out the rest of the story that Blanche left out, to allude herself into her sister's life without much honesty. "Whether it be with oneself or others, honesty is threatening, and in any case few people are capable of achieving it even if they want to. Honesty breaks through the screen of myth, giving glimpses of a truer world which may be almost unbearably frightening to live in" (Smail). This is the world we can find Blanche living in. A world where she is combating, internally, reality over illusion, yet, picking illusion over reality more and more until her actual demise.

See, back in these times in history, it was not 'ok' for a woman to sleep around with multiple guys. Blanche is no different in allowing herself to believe in fantasies and lies, that gave birth to her own mental reality. "--People can see the freedom that should be given to all others in the name of the fundamental public values of a politically liberal culture" (Cornell). It's this lack of equality that also plays a role on what Blanche can claim as reality, vs. what she alludes herself to be perceived as. On top of her sleeping around, she also has a very unhealthy appetite for 'young men'. This makes it very "difficult to reflect on one's sex or on one's sexual desires, which draw us into the deepest recesses of our unconscious fantasy life" (Cornell). Blanche also had many moments of picking at Stanley, saying "Yes, Swine! Swine! And I'm thinking not only of you, but your friend, Mr. Mitchell" (Scene 10). Shortly after Mitch called her unclean. This caused Stanley to lash out and say enough is enough, when he stated "there isn't no millionare! And Mitch didn't come back with roses 'cause I know where he is-" (Scene 10). This left Blanche at a loss of words to only repeat "Oh.", over and over, leaving Stanley to a forced advancement in saying "we've had this date with each other from the beginning" (Scene 10). Using sex as a means to finally overpower her lies, leaving us with William's descriptions that "She moans. The bottle top falls. She sinks to her knees" (Scene 10). This lack of fighting back towards Stanley, only further supports the claim that Blanche's illusions are finally dissolved through Stanley and Mitch's seeking for the truth within her lies.

This continuous game of tug and war, between Stanley and Blanche, was also a clear battle of reality vs. illusion, where Stanley's version of reality wins in the end. I chose to challenge the question at hand, of which theme Williams wanted us to embrace, because it would be unfair to either side I chose. By forcing me to be biased and side with reality or illusion is like forcing me to pick between oxygen or water. You need both, and according to their molecular structure (which one, you can see, while the other, you cannot), you cannot have one without the other, because oxygen is composed in both. Blanche may very well have lost in the end, allowing Stanley's version of reality to take the victory, but that doesn't mean that Blanche's illusion wasn't just as justified or embraced by William's storytelling.

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Works Cited:

         Cornell, Drucilla. At The Heart Of Freedom : Feminism, Sex, And Equality. Princeton: Princeton     University Press, 2001. eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 22 Feb. 2017.

         Hegerfeldt, Anne C. Lies That Tell The Truth : Magic Realism Seen Through Contemporary     Fiction From Britain.   Amsterdam: Brill Academic Publishers, 2005. eBook Academic  Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 22 Feb. 2017.

         Smail, David. Illusion And Reality : The Meaning Of Anxiety. London, United Kingdom:   Karnac Books, 2015. eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 22 Feb. 2017.

         Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. New York: New American Library, 1990.   Print.