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Darkness In A Streetcar Named Desire

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Darkness can be a comfortable place for anyone. Without having to look at yourself or have people see you, one may not feel as judged or insecure. Light is revealing. In a bright room, you can’t hide tears, blemishes, or emotions. Blanche, from A Streetcar Named Desire, knows the pain of brightness all too well. Blanche flees a failed company and a failed marriage in an 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, Tennessee Williams, uses the motif of light to reveal Blanche’s obsession with living in a fantasy world until the light illuminates her reality.
Blanche uses darkness to block her past from onlookers as to control her image. In particular, she hides her age and past relationships from onlookers, unable to reveal her genuine face to her biological sister. When Blanche first comes to Stella’s house, she firmly demands Stella to “turn the over-light off!” as she …show more content…

Delusional, Blanche hides in the darkness until the luminosity inevitably reveals her. As seen in the play, people like Stanley feed off of people with weak minds. Stanley notices how Blanche behaves very erratically and he feels entitled to her body. She puts on an exterior as a pretty lady without depth, which made him see her as a pretty object, not a hurting human. Blanche got caught up in her web of lies and found herself more lost in the darkness and unable to see her light. Had she faced her reality sooner, she could have protected herself from the psychological distress of her insecurities. One might ask: how could Blanche’s life differ if she had not hidden in the darkness since her husband’s death? Would she have found herself in these same harrowing

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