How are the themes of reality and illusion presented in 'A Streetcar Named Desire'?
‘I don’t want realism. I want magic!’ How does A Streetcar Named Desire explore reality and illusion? – Ella Lee Hoareau In A Streetcar Named Desire (Streetcar), reality and illusion are simultaneously interweaved and at odds with one another. On one hand, the play addresses a very real clash of cultures. Stanley, who enters dressed ‘roughly in blue denim work clothes’ exudes a raw power that can be argued to be symbolic of a ‘New America’, or more specifically, the rise of the proletariat. Conversely Blanche - a fading figure of the Southern Belle - arrives on stage ‘daintily dressed...as if she were arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party in the garden district’. The power struggle that ensues between these two characters acts as a microcosm for cultural changes that were happening across America at the time. Tony Coult describes a 1940s America as a country ‘facing a new world – industrialised and with many of the traditional social structures ... disrupted’1. Blanche struggles to deal with this reality – a reality that means that she is the last of her kind – and is forced to seek refuge in illusion. Thus Williams’ exploration of changing societal values takes place in the face of the crumbling mind of Blanche DuBois, allowing the play to ‘[take] place on a borderline, a seam between reality and its inverse’2, as described by Benedict Andrews. Williams establishes Blanche’s isolation from the moment she sets foot on stage. Dressed in ‘a white suit and a fluffy bodice, ear-rings of pearl, white gloves and a hat’, her pure, virginal appearance gives her an almost ethereal quality that is juxtaposed with the ‘atmosphere of decay’ that hangs over New Orleans. Williams describes how her ‘delicate beauty must avoid a strong light’ and this further exemplifies her dream-like appearance amid the harsh reality of New Orleans, with its ‘weathered grey’ houses and ‘rickety outside stairs’. However, this facade soon crumbles: she offends Eunice with a single look
Bibliography: 1. ‘Setting and A Streetcar Named Desire’ Tony Coult; Emagazine 37. Published 2007 2. ‘In the Rehearsal Room’ Interview with Director Benedict Andrews 3. ‘Idealism and Insanity: The subversion of the Southern Belle through the character of Blanche DuBois’ Nicolas A. Smith. http://www.uiowa.edu/~smack/archive/smack1.1/ess1.htm 4. ‘Gendered Language and Cultural Ideology in A Streetcar Named Desire’ Samuel Tapp; Emagazine 47. Published Dec. 2013. 5. Elia Kazan, 1947 in ‘A Streetcare Named Desire – Production Notes’.