Blanche DuBois lives in a world of illusion. She doesn’t want realism, she prefers magic. She doesn’t always tell the truth, but she tells “what ought to be truth.”
When Blanche gets to New Orleans, she has lived a life that would make the most people seem afraid and unassured. The death of her young husband and the banishment out of town, were the strokes of her life. She decides that in order to not reveal anything, she must create the illusions, that she is happy and the reason she is there is because she's on vacation. This is so that nobody would think less of her. She was always having baths so no one would see her dirty or tired. Blanche believes that she is too old so she uses the darkness to shield herself. Likewise, she must change the apartment. She can’t have the glaring, open light bulb. She must have cushioned light. She must live in the quiet, half-lit world of charm and illusion. She does not want to see things clearly but wants all ugly truths covered over with the beauty of imagination and illusion.
Blanche’s illusion and fantasy often seems for her like a kind of self-defence. When Stanley tries to rap Blanche, she picks up the phone, trying to call Mr. Shep Huntleigh instead of the police. This shows that she wants to keep her world of illusion and that she tries to build it up like a barrier, which protects her of all the bad things in the world. The rape is Blanche’s destruction as an individual. Blanche’s last remarks in the play seem to echo pathetically her bad circumstance. In actuality, Blanche’s action in the first part of the play indicates that, when Stanley was a stranger, she first desired him or at least flirted with him (“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…” p. 131 l. 14) . She goes with the doctor because he seems to be a gentleman and because he is a stranger. As she leaves, she says, “Whoever you are, I have always...