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How Far Do You See Tennessee Williams Use The Characters Blanche & Stanley To Explore The Theme Of Idealism And Realism?

The title of the play suggests a struggle between reality and illusion as the mundane concreteness of "streetcar" and the abstract quality of aspiration evoked in "desire" point to the juxtaposition of conflicting themes of realism and dreams. Blanche lives in a dream world; her reference to a "Barnum and Bailey world" in scene seven exposes the fantasy that her mind lives in. Stanley represents complete realism and cold truths of the world. Blanche is fantastical and idealistic.

The conflict between Blanche and Stanley is an outward show of the conflict that goes on within Blanche between illusion and reality, Blanche and Stanley are the two central characters in A Streetcar Named Desire, and their views are clear-cut. Stanley represents complete realism and Blanche is fantastical and idealistic, the division between the two clearly shows the struggle between reality and illusion in the play. Stanley's aim is to wipe out the regretful and fantastical daydream that rules Blanche's mind, and continually tries to figure out the true blanche and what lies beneath the ‘Hollywood glamour’ that surrounds her, but because blanche has had so many tragedies in her life she does not trust anyone, not only this but the fact that she stands out and cannot fit into her new surroundings does not help her in contrast to Stanley who appears animalistic, real and good-looking to her.

The music in the background also plays a key part in the play, in describing Blanche's emotions. As the streetcar (realism) would be the metaphor for Stanley and the polka and the Varsouviana for Blanche as the streetcar is real and loud whilst polka and Varsouviana are created for our own enjoyment (idealism). In the beginning the streetcar starts and Blanche gets scared and later on when polka begins to play Stanley gets annoyed, he begins to shout ‘turn it off!’ this shows there differences from the offset of the play.

Blanche loves living in an idealistic world, because it is the only...