A Streetcar named Desire Essay Example For Students

A Streetcar named Desire Essay Reality is a double-edged sword – we can evade it and face the consequences of doing so, or, we can face it and suffer the consequences of doing so. All too often, reality can be overwhelmingly negative, and with no other means of escape other than to deny the truth of their situation, a person will evade their reality. Death, loss, aging and a past that is best forgotten can often lead a person to falsify their reality. This notion is exemplified in Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire through protagonist Blanche Dubois who, through suffering through the death of her husband and most of her family, lost her cherished childhood home, it ‘on-the-shelf’ and trying to escape a promiscuous past has no option but to escape her reality and present a faux reality to those around her. The unreality of presented by Blanche is one in which she is dainty, pure, beautiful and desirable, a ‘reality’ she aims to perpetuate by hiding from harsh light and omitting details of her history with men to help her create the ‘magic’ of her reality. While Blanche explicitly states; â€Å"I don’t want realism,† through Stanley, Tennessee William’s puts forth the idea to his audience that reality is inescapable, and that the consequences for escaping reality are dire, harsh and cruelly judged by society. Blanche, who escapes her objectively reality is raped and suffers a severe mental collapse, being reduced to talking to imaginary onlookers and admirers, whereas Stanley, a blunt realist suffers no consequences, even getting his desire to be rid of Stella’s sister. By not trying to cope and resolve the difficulties and hardships in a reality, the problems are able to fester and grow, and are exacerbated to far greater, and even epic proportions. During the People’s Republic of China’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ reality became ignored by the people of China and the willing ignorance of Chinese leaders led to millions of deaths. During the Great Leap, grain production figures were falsified and inflated to ridiculous extents (a harvest of 200 million tonnes was reported to be 450 million! ) and those sceptical of the figures were shouted down by Maoist idealists unwilling to acknowledge the reality of China’s situation. Jung Chang – a Chinese historian, remarked â€Å"It was a time when telling fantasies to oneself and believing them was practised to an incredible degree in China. † The reality of China’s situation was severe food shortages, and between 1959 and 1961, 30 million Chinese people died due to famine. Lie’s and fallacies which created a false reality for Colin Sinclair eventually resulted in inescapable consequences for Colin Sinclair. In the article â€Å"I’m an Anzac fake,† Colin Sinclair revealed that he had been lying about his ‘service’ in the Vietnam War. According to Sinclair, one lie just â€Å"grew and grew† until he felt that he had to escape. Sinclair’s lies resulted in stigma and disapproval from both war veterans and wider society, and these consequences were inescapable. By avoiding reality, we render ourselves unable to cope with what cause the need for us to escape in the first place, and even though we are able to temporarily evade reality, the reality we left behind eventually catches up to us. Alternatively, however, there are situations in which escaping reality will yield no greater consequences than dealing with it. When our lifestyle is threatened, to preserve it, we lit, and may even ignore reality. Griffin Mill from the film The Player was in danger of having his lifestyle robbed from him for his murder of David Kahane. Rather than confessing to police his guilt surrounding the murder of Kahane, Mill instead hides the reality to prevent his utter social destruction. Murderers and Their Victims EssayShe has always heard the music, but then she hears it distorted, showing how she is seeing things in her mind. Then the music stops, which shows Blanches last connection with sanity broken. Another way that Williams dramatises Blanches final demise into madness is the way she dresses. She always dresses really well and in light colours. When she is first seen in the beginning of scene I, she is described to dress; As if she were arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party in the garden district. However, although they appear to be expensive, they arent. For example, her diamond tiara is actually rhinestone. How she dresses represents how she is. She tries really hard to always make sure she is clean and dressed nicely, so that she appears clean and nice. She bathes a lot of the time so she feels clean. In scene V she accidentally gets coke on her dress, and she screams, but calms down once she realises it is not stained. Stella asks her; Blanche, why did you scream like that? Blanche doesnt give her an answer. This shows that she doesnt really know, or doesnt want to think about it. She also dresses mostly in light colours and white, which represents virginity, where she is trying to forget her past as a prostitute. In the beginning of scene I, the description of her is; looking as if she were arriving at a summer tea or a cocktail party in the garden district. This shows that this is where she would like to be going, and how she would like to be seen. In scene X, at the beginning of the scene, she is dressed in a crumpled and stained white dress and scuffed shoes; she has decked herself out in a somewhat soiled and crumpled white satin evening gown and a pair of scuffed silver slippers. This is where she is starting to show her true self, and she is not trying so hard to pretend that she is rich and innocent anymore. This is after Stanley has given her tickets back to Laurel, which she cant do, and after Mitch said he doesnt want to be with her anymore. Everyone knows about her past, so she is no longer trying to conceal it. She doesnt see a future for herself, as she can no longer marry Mitch and Stanley is forcing her out. In scene XI, she is wearing clean clothes again and dressing nicely, as she thinks that she id going away with Shep Huntleigh, although it is all in her mind and she is actually going to a Mental Institute. This shows that she is trying again to make herself look nice to deceive this man. Another way Williams dramatises Blanches final demise into madness is by the way she acts. At the beginning of scene IX she is sitting in a tense, hunched position, and she is drinking liquor. This shows she is trying to escape what has happened; Mitch did not show up at her birthday party, and Stanley gave her a bus ticket back to Laurel. When Mitch arrives, he is drunk, unshaven and rude to her, but she just ignores it. As Mitch says; I wasnt going to see you any more, she says that she cant hear him. This shows that she is just trying to escape reality. She always avoids harsh light, as she doesnt like people knowing how old she is. When Mitch firsts asks her, she manages to change the subject, and she only goes out with him when it is dark. Once he tears the paper lantern off of the light bulb, she cries out. This is because she cannot hide how she looks anymore. She has always been sensitive about her age and how she looks, like when she only lets Mitch see her after dark in dimly-lighted place. The lantern represents her fragile shell of normality and beauty hiding her interior which she doesnt want anyone else to see.