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A Streetcar Named Desire Paper Lantern Analysis

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Paper Lantern representing Manipulation- Blanche avoids bright lighting to avoid showing her wrinkles since he believes that she’s “past her prime”. As a result, she utilizes a paper lantern to shield the bright light in Stanley and Stella’s apartment. When she places the lantern over the light, she develops the illusion that she is young by hiding her wrinkles, making her feel like she 's more desirable. Alongside her wrinkles, Blanche is also using the light to symbolically hide her herself and her past. She is ashamed of her actions in Laurel, such as having a relationship with her 17-year-old student. However, when she places the lantern over the light, she creates an illusion that she is still young, like she was when she was 16. She attempts to live in the world before she had done so many shameful things, living a happy southern-belle lifestyle. As a result, it can be concluded that the paper lantern symbolizes illusion. This characterizes Blanche as manipulative, as she constantly lies about herself and the life she had lived in order to make herself appear more desirable. Living her life in illusion, she lies to everyone in New Orleans, ultimately leading …show more content…

In scene two, she sprays herself with perfume and then sprays Stanley with it playfully, to which Stanley replies “If I didn 't know that you was my wife 's sister I 'd get ideas about you”. This is just one example of Blanche’s shameless flirtation with Stanley in the scene. Blanche is so flirtatious due to her loneliness and desire to find love. Ever since Allen’s death, Blanche had no one significant in her life to provide her with companionship and love. Due to this, Blanche is incredibly flirtatious in an attempt to get men to desire her and fill the hole of loneliness in her. She goes to great lengths to recreate the feeling of desire she had with Allen, going as far to sleep with many men and have a relationship with her

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Alternatively, in a more literal sense Blanche understands that love can never be as strong as her first love and places herself into darkness to hide the fact that she may never find love: “never for one moment since”. Women from the Old South were expected to marry young and have children, Blanche has therefore failed because she has had affairs with many men and in order to stop herself believing she has let down her heritage and traditions, she creates illusions which portray herself as an innocent woman, wanting to marry “Marry me Mitch!” In addition she believes that she is aging and is no longer desirable, which cannot be seen clearly in dim light so she tends to hide herself from strong exposure, portrayed in “put a–paper lantern over

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In contrast, Blanche, besides conducting her conversation subtly and indirectly, also enjoys refinement such as “art, poetry, and music” (83). She shields the lamp with paper lanterns and sprays the house with perfume, both refinements intolerable to Stanley, who tears them down at the last

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A Streetcar Named Desire: Discussion Questions

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In Scene 10, Blanche is begging Stanley to let her get by and he is not moving to let her through. Stanley says that he thinks Blanche would not be too bad to interfere with in a sexual way going back to Scene 6, when he would walk through the rooms in his underwear at night near Blanche. Blanche complained about the little bit of privacy she had in the house and that was exemplified when Stanley later picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. Blanche had thought in the beginning that her situation was frightful, but never to the degree in which she experienced towards the end of the

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Light Techniques In A Streetcar Named Desire

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From here on, it shows that Blanche’s appearance and how she perceives herself as a person ties closely to the lighting in the room. For instance, when Mitch and Blanche introduce themselves for the first time, she makes the statement, “I bought this adorable little colored paper lantern at a Chinese shop on Bourbon. Put it on the light bulb! Will you, please?” (54).

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This is where Blanche becomes obsessed with avoiding any type of light, whether it be in a loving relationship or an overhead lightbulb. Her reaction can be seen as an attempt hide the fact her youth is fading as well as her true nature. While staying with her sister Blanche makes several strides to stay in the dark. One of the first in a series of events she has Stanley’s friend Mitch cover a naked bulb in her room with a Chinese paper lantern stating “I can’t stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action” (114; sec. 3) shows that she would rather hide behind fancy shades than face

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She frequently relies on her perception of herself as an object of male sexual desire. She always starts with flirting when she comes in contact with men. Blanche tells Stella that she and Stanley smoothed things over when she began to flirt with him, “I called him a little boy and laughed and flirted. Yes, I flirted with your husband.” (44) When Blanche meets Stanley’s poker-playing friends, she takes interest to Mitch and sees him as a possible choice for her to find companionship.

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This shows how someone can think they are doing a good job how hiding their true self, but actually, everyone can see through their persona. Blanche tries her best to make sure her appearances are well kept; she is completely oblivious to the fact that she has severe mental and emotional problems, due to the fact that her husband took his own life.

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Both Blanche's family and Belle Reve represent her dream to indulge in a sophisticated, high class, and luxurious life. When all of Blanche’s family dies and Stella leaves, Blanche loses the first piece of her “beautiful dream.” She no longer has the money to support herself, since her educational career provides insufficient funds. After the tragic loss of her husband, Blanche loses Belle Reve and loses her job, symbolizing that her “beautiful dream” has been fully crushed and the only remnants of her dream are the lies she feeds herself. This fall of social class leads Blanche to carry a tone of classism.

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These rumors were a threat to what she has created in order to help her with the chaos in her life. Although she tried to build a new life with Stella, Stanley never gave in to her act and was constantly suspicious of her actions. Stanley's constant investigations and interrogations on Blanche’s old life. This is a representation of reality is starting to creep in of Blanche's newly created life. From the beginning Stanley has doubted Blanche, this is seen as he went through Blanche's things with Stella, questioning her belongings, “has she got this stuff out of teacher's pay?”(2.33).

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When Blanche first comes to Stella’s house, she firmly demands Stella to “turn the over-light off!” as she cannot “be looked at in [the] merciless glare” (Williams 11). Although the light seems harsh, Blanche acts hardhearted and pitiless and could possibly be seeing herself in the glare. Blanche “cannot tolerate being seen in bright light” because she is “hypersensitive to her declining physical beauty” (Adler 30). In attempts to protect her own image, she buys a paper lantern to cover the harsh light in Stanley and Stella’s bedroom; Blanche’s mental state is “as fragile” as the paper lantern that protects her from her own reality (Adler 30).

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