Blanche In Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

The final outcome claimed the victory of pragmatics, in other words, the failure of fantasy whose representative was Blanche. She was an idealist and romanticist proven by her saying, “I don’t want realism, I want magic” (Act I, Scene 9). Due to her first homosexual lover and the decline of her family in early years, she dissatisfied with the reality just as she disliked the naked light bulb which was “a rude remark or a vulgar action.”(Act I, scene 3) Thus, In order to keep the last dignity of a falling aristocracy and dwell in the illusion about the old days, she fabricated her self-image. Truth? She decided to cover it like covering the naked bulb with papercut. However, it was true that Blanche’s unrealistic manipulations for the truth
never bothered others much. According to her statement that “Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable It is the one unforgivable thing in my opinion and it is the one thing of which I have never, never been guilty. (Act I, scene 9)”, her conscience forbad her to hurt anyone. Hence, she was not qualified to a villain. In contrast, like the electric lighting in his room, Stanley’s hatred towards Blanche was violent and brutal. The core of his aggressiveness was the social class gap. What irritated him most were the aristocratic values beneath her luxurious fake jewels or long-time bathing, which apparently affected his controlling power over his wife and his house. Thus, he forced Blanche to face the reality in order to let her suffer and win back his dominance.