‘Blanche deludes herself throughout the play’. Using an examination of the end of scene five as a starting point, explore William’s presentation of Blanche.
Williams presents Blanche DuBois throughout “A Streetcar named Desire” as a woman on the edge of reality. She draws attention with her sincere and fragile personality, which is later revealed as a mask she uses to cover up her past. She has created her own world in order to protect herself from her own fears. Blanche’s hope throughout the play is to salvage her life in the world of brutality where her inner anxiety clashes with, and is eventually taken over by, reality.
Scene five marks the point where we can see Blanche’s façade beginning to deteriorate. This starts when Stella and Stanley leave the apartment to Blanche. The stage directions that follow depict a sort of transformation. Her eyelids falling shut show Blanche as shutting out reality, followed by the “palm leaf dropping”, which is symbolic of her shedding her metaphorical skin. She “slaps her hand on the chair arm”; as if to wake up her true self. The use of hand mirror suggests that Blanche will soon show herself as who she really is. There is also “a little glimmer of lightning” which gives the contrast to the setting and suggests going into the world of illusion where there is a light and a hope. The emergence of the Negro Women intensifies the contrast between the dark reality and bright illusion, because the “Young Man enters from the opposite direction”. She had felt humiliated earlier by the accusations of being a prostitute but the illusionary young man’s interest in her makes her feel young and desirable. Blanche’s physical attraction towards the young man enhances the idea of a pleasant dream and temporary magic as she describes him as a ‘Prince out of the Arabian Nights’ which is representative of her constant attempt to romanticize things by depicting them as more attractive than they really are. This ‘dressing up’ of...