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Use Of Light In A Streetcar Named Desire

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There are several ways you could say Tennessee William uses the motifs of light and shadow throughout the play “A Streetcar Named Desire”. One of the most obvious is how both are used to convey the difference between reality and the fantasy world some characters seem trapped in. Reality is represented by light, under it nothing can be hidden. Whereas staying in the shadows allow one to hide parts of themselves they wish to keep secret and create a false sense of reality, a fantasy of who they want to be. Williams also uses light to develop the character of Blanche, who struggles with her past and aging body.
Throughout the play reality is seen as harsh and unforgiving. It illuminates each character for who they really are despite the destruction it leaves behind. Williams uses Stanley as a representation of light throughout the play as he is described …show more content…

When she speaks of her past her world seems bright. Williams writes “It was like you suddenly turned a blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow, that’s how it struck the world for me.” (132; sec. 6)Describing just how blinding Blanches love for her deceased husband was. After she drives him to suicide her world becomes dark and she turns to a series of tricks to lure suitor to fulfill her sexual desires. 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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At the time, society’s norms led Stanley to believe that ‘“Every Man is a King!”’ and that he was the king over his own household (Williams, Scene 8 page 131). This ideal influenced Stanley to be power hungry and abusive, which negatively affected his relationship with his wife Stella. However, Stanley never gave up on Stella when she ran away because he was determined to be a good husband (Williams, Scene 3 page 65).

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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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Brilliant and creative writers are able to exploit simple ideas or objects to emphasize an important message or characterize a persona in his or her play. In “Streetcar Named Desire,” by Tennessee Williams, Williams utilizes light to help characterize Blanche DuBois. She is presented as an individual who avoids reality, has sexual desires, and displays herself ostentatiously, but she is really an insecure tragic figure; she lies about her age and steers clear of things that will expose the truth. Williams uses light, in his play, as a motif to illustrate that Blanche does not only hide from the light to disguise her age, but by choice (very much) hide her imperfections (flaws) and the truth. There are many interpretations as to what “Blanche”

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It is what is haunting Blanche’s life, it is what has made her mentally unstable. Throughout the play, she has been hiding her past from people so she looks like

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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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Tennessee Williams is one of the most recognized playwrights that lived during the mid-twentieth-century (“Tennessee Williams”). After finishing college, Williams decides to move to New Orleans, where he writes A Streetcar Named Desire. His career starts to take off as he begins to write more plays (“Tennessee Williams”). A Streetcar Named Desire talks about the life of a woman, Blanche DuBois, who is very secretive about her past and does not expose her true intentions of coming to live with her younger sister Stella. As the play goes on Stanley, Stella’s husband, starts to dig into the dark past that terrorizes Blanche when they begin to have a conflict with each other.

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To show this Tennessee Williams brilliantly disguises multiple words with double meanings. The two forces are also represented by the two purposely, opposed characters, Stanley Kowalski who represents Light and Truth and Blanche Dubois who represents Darkness and Fantasy. Williams even makes the characters personality and historic background contrast greatly to further emphasize this idea of opposing forces of Light and darkness. Stanley Kowalski is, Non- apologetic, Low social status Strong and Robust Exposes Blanche. Blanche Dubois: Mysterious and Manipulative High social status Fragile and Delicate and has an Inability to overpower

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“A Streetcar Named Desire” contains a strong lighting motif that repeats throughout the play. This usually involves Blanche, a character who shies away from any light that is drawn upon her, and is especially sensitive to light when her suitor Mitch is around. To Blanche, she is still young and beautiful in her mind, but when light shines on her she becomes afraid that Mitch will notice her aging skin, her beauty falling. This motif heavily implies how Blanche sees herself and the significance to her sexual innocence. To begin, throughout the play the audience begins to understand how Blanche sees herself.

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Self-Perception plays a dominant role in the hunt to reconcile in the conflict between illusion and reality. How an individual views themselves often causes it to be much harder to reconcile between reality and fantasy. Tennessee Williams character Blanche Dubois from A streetcar named desire is a perfect example of how the way you see yourself affects the way you live in existence with reality. Throughout the book, Blanche Dubois struggles to differentiate the difference between reality and her own illusions. Blanche views herself as pure and innocent and chooses to ignore the reality of who she truly is.

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How are dramatic elements used to convey and enrich meaning? In the play, A Streetcar Named Desire, the theme used throughout the work, is appearances vs reality. This can be considered a broad meaning, however in this case, the two main characters, Stanley and Stella, appear to have a loving, safe relationship. In reality, Stanley is quite abusive towards Stella.

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Another very common theme represented throughout both texts, is the constant allusion to light. Within “A Streetcar Named Desire”, the use of light reveals Blanche’s role and appearance as a character. One of Blanche’s biggest flaws is that she prefers to be only seen in the dark. She does not like to reveal herself in the light as she is afraid of people seeing that she is in fact aging.

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Stereotypical gender roles have existed as long as human culture has, becoming a natural part of all of our lives. Within each gender lies a variety of stereotypes and expectations. Most notably for men they are often depicted as tough and the family provider. Whereas women are often shown to be soft and vulnerable. Throughout the play A Streetcar Named Desire the author; Tennessee Williams illustrates the main characters, Stanley, Stella, Mitch and Blanche with these stereotypes.

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Blanche flees a failed company and a failed marriage in attempt to find refuge in her sister’s home. Through her whirlwind of emotions, the reader can see Blanche desires youth and beauty above all else, or so the readers think. In reality, she uses darkness to hide the true story of her past. In A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, Williams uses the motif of light to reveal Blanche’s habit of living in a fantasy world until the light illuminates her reality. Blanche uses darkness to block her past from onlookers as to shape her image.

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Tennessee Williams wrote “A Streetcar Named Desire” (Williams, 1947) It is based in New Orleans a new cosmopolitan city which is poor but has raffish charm. The past is representing old south in America 1900’s and present is representing new America post world war 2 in 1940’s. Past and present are intertwined throughout the play in the characters Stanley, Blanche, Stella and mitch. Gender roles show that males are the dominant and rule the house which Stanley is prime example as he brings home food and we learn of one time when he got cross and he smashed the light bulbs.

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he says: “not once did you pull any wool over this boy’s eyes!” Not only Stanley had broken her world of illusion, but also Mitch who is influenced by Stanley and destroys the protection of darkness by exposing her to the bright light. Stanley bringing up the past contributes to how Blanches ends up, alone and insane expressing the theme that what happened in the past determines the present, and illusion and fantasy directly correlate. Though reality triumphs over fantasy in A Streetcar Named Desire, when the truth comes colliding down on Blanche, she has no choice but to go insane ultimately avoiding the acceptance of

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