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A Streetcar Named Desire Light Essay

1293 Words6 Pages

A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, demonstrates light as a moral conflict with Blanche’s personality. For example, light shows the true nature of appearance versus reality with Blanche losing her dignity and the reality of seeing her essential beauty. Williams portrays Blanche’s uneasiness about light in her romantic interest in Mitch. Blanche fears her emotions against the vague shadows of depression. Light symbolizes the tragedy of Blanche’s first love and the heartbreak that was unbearable to her soul. Blanche realizes that her phobia of light ruins her self-confidence without having a chance to escape and believes happiness is a joke in life. Blanche discovers her revelation when she confronts her phobia of light in Stella and Stanley’s apartment. She discovers the purpose of Mitch dumping her for the quality of being deceitful. In Act IX, Williams characterizes Mitch as the man who observes Blanche’s avoidance of light from sorrow and idealism: “What it means is I’ve never had a real good look at you, Blanche. Let’s turn the light on here” (1164). Light represents Blanche’s youth, naiveté, affairs, and sexual …show more content…

The illusion of light reveals Blanche’s identity behind her perplexing mask. Aggressiveness and pleasure are unpredictable in regards to her sadistic ambitions for humiliating others, such as Stella and Mitch. Blanche symbolizes a pitiful shadow cloak in darkness that can cause men pain and suffering. Her sins will drown in a hollow shell of regret and doubt. In Act V, Williams characterizes Blanche’s desire for a man to adore her: “Because of hard knocks my vanity’s been given. What I mean is-he thinks I’m sort of-prime and proper, you know! I want to deceive him enough to make him-want me…” (1147). The direct influence of an external world contradicts her own movements and decisions. The play implies that Blanche’s soul is tarnish with

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