In
,juxtaposes concepts of reality and illusion. The main character, Blanche
DuBois, comes to stay at her sisters house to escape her former life and her own fears of aging
and of loneliness. She desperately needs romantic illusion. The world of her brother-in-law,
Stanley Kowalski, is the world of social . This is depicted through the goings-on in their flat
and the street they live on but also, even more importantly, through his rough behavior and his
opinions. Stanleys character has a constant need to burst the bubble of illusion that Blanche
attempts to build around herself because, in the world he represents, there is no room for hope
or delusion. He faces the stark reality of a rough life as a worker who can barely manage to
keep his family. For this reason, Stanley is positioned as anto Blanche.
In a
wider sense, Tennessee Williams uses the traditions of the realistic and the romantic drama to
underscore the clash between the two concepts. On the one hand, thein the play is detailed and
psychologically realistic, and on the other, the sets, which Williams describes in great detail
in the stage directions, are symbolic rather than realistic. This device places the viewer in
between the two worlds: the realism of hard, unhappy lives, and the highly stylized reflections
on Blanche's character and her attempts to shape the world outside to her own desires. The fact
that by the end of the play she has a complete breakdown, caused largely by Stanley having raped
her, shows in stark contrast how reality crushes the dreamers. In that sense, theof the play is
also part of the realist tradition, and the message it sends is hard yet
realistic.
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