Summary Of Blanche In 'A Streetcar Named Desire'

Stanley as a main character however is an antithesis of Blanche in that he is very realistic about life, and exposes Blanche’s illusions, (for example “Blanche is no lily”) however he does seem to portray illusions when speaking about his own dreams, which could be blamed upon ignorance however it is evidenced that this is not the case. In Scene 2 Stanley exclaims to Stella “And diamonds! A crown for an empress!” This can be seen as critical due to the fact him and Stella have very little and Blanche seems to have diamonds, therefore portraying that he wishes to have the money that Blanche apparently owns and owes him. Use of the noun “empress” portrays Stanley’s ideas of the Old South as the people were seemed to be that of gentry and very

However Stella goes on to correct him with “rhinestone”, which tells Stanley that there is not very much money and it all the wealth is all very fake. However Stanley goes on to pursue the papers of Belle Reve, in an attempt to gain some money from the plantation, which despite his knowledge that there is not much money he still believes that he can benefit, demonstrated in “Napoleonic Code”, therefore there is a contrast in how Stanley has illusions of how much money he may be able to gain and the realism of his pursuit of any benefits, despite his ignorance of the Napoleonic Code, which did not apply to the context of 1947 New Orleans. Alternatively, it could be seen that Stanley is aware that the Napoleonic code did not apply to New Orleans in 1947, but still uses it, just to create the illusion that he legitimately is owed money. Therefore we can understand that Stanley is very realistic about pursuing the plantation, by getting the papers to analyse whether there was any money left, which demonstrates he is not an illusionist in his

People from Poland are Poles, not Polacks. But what I am is a one hundred percent American, born and raised in the greatest country on earth.” We understand however that Stanley definitely has Polish heritage so he is creating the illusion that he is “one hundred percent American”, furthermore use of the first person pronoun “I” with the superlative adjective “greatest” imply that Stanley thinks he is better than Blanche and Stella because they are also American, therefore he may be demonstrating how he believes he adopts the American way of living (working for your wealth) much better than the sisters, which is true. However he is partly living a life consumed by illusion because he believes that he is more American than they are which is not true because their heritage is a large part of American past. Stanley’s pursuit of the American dream is unrealistic although because the American Dream is not as easily gained and is often based upon fake money, demonstrated by Blanche’s “rhinestones” as in the 1920s the roaring 20s was based upon borrowed money which went onto fail in the Depression. However despite all this knowledge Stanley continues to believe he can get his American dream with Stella and possible money from Belle Reve, portraying his illusionist