Fantasy and reality

Stella thinking positively of Stanley (Scene 4)

Stella: “I’m awful sorry it had to happen, but it wasn’t anything as serious as you seem to take it. In the first place, when men are drinking and playing poker anything can happen. It’s always a powder-keg. he didn’t know what he was doing… He was as good as a lamb when i came back and he’s really, very, very ashamed of himself.”

Blanche: “And that - that makes it all right?”

Stella: “No, it isn’t all right for anybody to make such a terrible row, but - people do sometimes."

Blanche writing a letter to Shep Huntley (Scene 5)

Stella: “What are you laughing at, honey?”

Blanche: “Myself, myself, for being such a liar! I’m writing a letter to Shep [She picks up the letter.] ‘Darling Shep. I am spending the summer on the win, making flying visits here and there. and who knows, perhaps I shall take a sudden notion to swoop down on Dallas! How would you feel about that? Ha-ha! [She laughs nervously and brightly, touching her throat as if actually talking to [SHEP.]

Mitch and Blanche’s date, with Blanche pretending to be in a café in Paris (Scene 6)

Blanche: “We are going to be very Bohemian. We are going to pretend that we are sitting in a little artists’ café on the Left Bank in Paris! [She lights a candle and puts it in a bottle]

Stanley catching out on Blanche’s lies (Scene 10):

Stanley: “As a matter of fact there wasn’t no wire at all!”

Blanche: “Oh!”

Stanley: “There isn’t no millionaire! And Mitch didn’t come back with roses ‘cause I know where he is -”

Blanche: “Oh!”

Stanley: “There isn’t a goddamn thing but imagination!”

Blanche: “Oh!”

Stanley: “And lies and conceit and tricks!”

Blanche: “Oh!”

Stanley: “And look at yourself! Take a look at yourself in that worn-out Mardi Gras outfit, rented for fifty cents from some rag-picker! And with the crazy crown on! What queen do you think you are!”

Blanche: “Oh - God…”

Blanche’s repetitive bathing (Scene 2+3+7+8)

Scene 2

Blanche [airily]: “Hello, Stanley! Here I am, all freshly bathed and scented, and feeling like a brand-new human being!

Scene 3

Blanche: “I think I will bathe. My nerves are in knots.”

Scene 7

[In the bathroom the water goes on loud; little breathless cries and peals of laughter are heard as if a child were frolicking in the tub]

…

Stanley: “Hey, canary bird! Toots! Get OUT of the BATHROOM! Must I speak more plainly?”

…

Scene 8

Blanche: “I take hot baths for my nerves. Hydro-therapy, they call it.”

Blanche and the use of light imagery (Scene 1+5+9)

Scene 1

[…dressed in a white suit […] white gloves and hat]

…

Blanche: “Turn that over-light off! Turn that off! I won't be looked at in this merciless glare!”

Scene 5

Blanche: “The soft people have got to - shimmer and glow - put a - paper lantern over the light… […] You’ve got to be soft and attractive.”

Scene 9

Blanche: “I like it dark. The dark is comforting to me.”

Thesis statement

Williams presents fantasy and reality in A Streetcar Named Desire through the character of Blanche as having control over one’s life through its attempt to imagine and desire a better life for themselves to escape the true reality they are living in. However, this desire may also keep one from seeing their own or other people’s flaws.