Within A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams utilizes archetypes to highlight the irony that an outcast’s idealistic illusions may actually be better than the reality that most people just accept without hope for change, and anyone, even one seemingly in touch with reality, is capable of being blinded by an illusion, though they may not fully acknowledge it.
Blanche’s stance as an outcast of society (exiled from her hometown, raised in a culturally different atmosphere from Stanley’s environment) allows her to clearly perceive the subtle flaws in Stanley’s reality. After viewing Stanley’s inherently violent behavior at the first poker night, Blanche is appalled that Stella still ends up going back to him and tries to warn her of the dangers of staying in their relationship:
“[T]here he is—Stanley Kowalski—survivor of the stone age!... And you—you here—waiting for him! Maybe he’ll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you! … In some kinds of people some tenderer feelings have had some little beginning! That we have got to make grow! And cling to, and hold as our flag! In this dark march toward whatever it is we’re approaching. . . . Don’t—don’t hang back with the brutes!” (72)
As an outsider, set apart from almost all other characters by her cultural background and recent arrival to the area, Blanche is better able to see the overall picture of the potential development of an abusive cycle in Stanley and Stella’s relationship, though Stella adamantly refuses to listen and “blinds” herself with her love for him. In addition, in the end, Blanche is “cast out” of society again when Stanley finally gets her sent to the state mental institution. Although Blanche once again retains her “outcast” identity and Stella agrees to placing her in a mental institution, Stella continues to question this decision and whether or not she should believe Blanche’s account of the rape or Stanley’s up to the very end when she regrets the decision (as she continues cry out to Blanche after she leaves) showing that Blanche’s experience finally opened her eyes to the illusion of safety in her marriage to Stanley.
The unhealable wounds, from her past scarring experience with her first husband to her way of coping with her family’s deaths, caused Blanche to lose her former innocence and thus allow readers sympathize with her idealistic hope to finally find peace in Elysian Fields. Throughout the play, Blanche continues to recall bits and pieces from her past (“Death—I used to sit here and she used to sit over there and death was as close as you are . . . we didn’t dare even admit we had ever heard of it!” (120)) and shows how much she wants to, not necessarily escape it, but to move past it and start over new in her sister’s town, build a better life for herself. Blanche’s simple hope to be able to still continue living life to its fullest and find happiness despite her past scarring experience allow the reader to have more sympathy for her idealistic illusions because they provide hope for all people to be able to overcome their past mistakes and become better people. In addition after Stanley uncovers Blanche’s past to Mitch, Blanche tells Mitch:
“…So I came here. There was nowhere else I could go. I was played out… My youth was suddenly gone up the water-spout, and—I met you [Mitch]… I thanked God for you, because you seemed to be gentle…But I guess I was asking, hoping—too much! Kiefaber, Stanley and Shaw have tied an old tin can to the tail of the kite.” (Williams 118)
This line comparing the way Stanley used reality to prevent her from reaching her hopes to having “tied an old tin can to the tail of the kite” further characterizes reality as limiting or crushing the hopes of others and allows the readers the sympathize more with Blanche’s idealistic hopes.
Blanche’s search for paradise at Elysian Fields (known as paradise or the afterlife in Greek mythology) and ultimate failure to find it in Stanley’s home further characterizes her sorrow and questions whether the binds of reality should be strictly followed if they suppress others’ hopes. When Mitch, after finding out what Stanley had researched about Blanche’s past, accuses Blanche of deliberately lying to him, Blanch protests saying, “Never inside, I didn’t lie in my heart…” (119). Blanche’s response to Mitch’s harsh accusations show her inner pure intentions to simply be accepted in society again by conforming and trying to build herself in society’s conventional image of an unmarried prim and proper lady. “Whoever you are—I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” (142), this line that Blanche says as she is finally taken away the mental institution ties back to her role as a outcast and constant floating from one place to another in search of paradise. By leaving with that statement, Blanche invokes a sense of hope despite her illusion, and Williams seems to contrast this with Stella’s regret at the end and predicament of being stuck in a “realistic illusion” because she cannot openly address the domestic abuse in her relationship with Stanley.
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