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A Streetcar Named Desire
Contrasts: The major contrast is between Blanche and Stanley. It begins with how they grew up. Even their names and the way they sound are opposite. Blanche is aristocratic with a French name. She comes from a world of teas, cocktails and talks on a higher level. She searches for values and wants to keep the traditions of Belle Reve. Kowalski's are loud, aggressive. They come from a world, not of tea, but of cheap beer. They express their desires in crude, simple language and are concerned with physical things and money, not art and values.
Colors are also contrasted between these two characters. Stanley is associated with vivid colors. Coarse, loud primary colors are his style. Blanche, however, selects pastels or white colors that are muted and muffled.
Truth vs Reality: Stanley is simple, straightforward and honest. He embodies the unembelished truth. Blanche, obviously, typifies the opposite. She "puts a gaily-colored paper lantern" on the harshness of the truth. A woman's charm she say is 50% illusion. Stanley hates the lantern for covering up the truth and deceiving others. Take note of the words to the songs that Blanche sings in the bathroom.
Love: Another theme is the of Love. Stanley is satified by his animal desires. Love to him is a physical act to be enjoyed. To Blanche, love is not physical. What she needs is someone to protect her. Love is a concept that she places on a higher level, a spiritual level.
Light vs. Darkness: Stanley is into the reality of life. He is like a naked light bulb: harsh. He faces the way things are and doesn't delude himself. What Blanche calls "magic", he calls lies. On ther hand, Blanche must soften the light with a flimsy paper lantern. When she saw what reality is like with her husband, it nearly broke her. "There has never been any light that's stronger that this -- kitchen -- candle" in her life since her husband's suicide. She uses the paper lantern to hide the strength of the light. This is the only way she can cope. The songs she sings represent this theme.
Loneliness: This theme looks at what loneliness can do to people. Look at what it's done to Blanche. Bereft after her husband's suicide, she becomes a prostitute to fill her emptiness. She molests a young boy and deludes herself and others that she is charming and sociable. She invents tales about Shep Huntleigh (whether he is real or not, it doesn't matter). Loneliness is what brings Mitch and Blanche together. She is willing to put up with him rather than be a lonely spinster. He, in turn, needs someone to replace his mother.
To compensate for her loneliness and despair, Blanche creates illusions. She clings to the past with the old rules of behavior and conduct. Blanche values her past with the Southern manners and maintains the speech of the dying South. She comes to Elysian Fields seeking love and help, but instead finds hostility and rejection. She has been scarred [next page]