Crushing Beautiful Dreams
Light and Darkness to motifs often used to portray good and evil in literature. However, the one wielding each of these tools does not always have a character that demonstrates the respective morals. In the play, A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams uses the binaries of light and dark to demonstrate the opposing characteristics, and power struggle between Stanley and Blanche.
Throughout the play Stanley has embodied light as the unadulterated harsh reality, constantly passing his subjective judgements. From the moment Blanche enters his life he makes up his mind about her like it is second nature: “He sizes women up at a glance with sexual classification”(25). Stanley judges Blanche by his own criteria of sexual attraction. He doesn’t take in a cultured first impression of her, one of greetings and other pleasantries, but one of a sexual animalistic nature leaving Blanche exposed to him. He is in control of the situation and lets her know by “sizing [her up]”. Later on in the play Stanley tells Blanche that she was never able to manipulate him, “Not once did you pull any …show more content…
She fears light as it represents her true self, “I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare”(11). Her fear of light is clear as she refers to it as “merciless” and it represents her inability to accept reality as she shies away from the truth that “glares]” at her. She steps out of the light in order to keep hold of her reality and maintain her control over it. During Stanley’s poker night, Blanche enlists the help of Mitch to cover a light bulb, she says, “I can’t stand a naked light bulb”. Mitch covering the light bulb for Blanche is a metaphor for him allowing her to hide away her past. This puts Blanche in control because she is able to hide her true self from Mitch. She is able to alter her version of reality to fit her own
Light and Darkness to motifs often used to portray good and evil in literature. However, the one wielding each of these tools does not always have a character that demonstrates the respective morals. In the play, A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams uses the binaries of light and dark to demonstrate the opposing characteristics, and power struggle between Stanley and Blanche.
Throughout the play Stanley has embodied light as the unadulterated harsh reality, constantly passing his subjective judgements. From the moment Blanche enters his life he makes up his mind about her like it is second nature: “He sizes women up at a glance with sexual classification”(25). Stanley judges Blanche by his own criteria of sexual attraction. He doesn’t take in a cultured first impression of her, one of greetings and other pleasantries, but one of a sexual animalistic nature leaving Blanche exposed to him. He is in control of the situation and lets her know by “sizing [her up]”. Later on in the play Stanley tells Blanche that she was never able to manipulate him, “Not once did you pull any …show more content…
She fears light as it represents her true self, “I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare”(11). Her fear of light is clear as she refers to it as “merciless” and it represents her inability to accept reality as she shies away from the truth that “glares]” at her. She steps out of the light in order to keep hold of her reality and maintain her control over it. During Stanley’s poker night, Blanche enlists the help of Mitch to cover a light bulb, she says, “I can’t stand a naked light bulb”. Mitch covering the light bulb for Blanche is a metaphor for him allowing her to hide away her past. This puts Blanche in control because she is able to hide her true self from Mitch. She is able to alter her version of reality to fit her own