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A Beautiful Dream Lost
hints at the decay of the old southern ways.
The small apartment Blanche now stays in is located in New Orleans. This apartment is the setting for the journey that Blanche attempts into the modern world. "New Orleans, says a stage direction, 'is a cosmopolitan city where there is a relatively warm and easy intermingling of races in the old part of the town" (Hayman 110). Ironically, Blanche is not able to survive in these diverse new surroundings.
The apartment where Blanche is staying, Elysian Fields, is considerably smaller than her old home in Belle Reve. It is apparent Blanche is out of her natural environment from the moment she steps out of the streetcar. "Blanche, dressed in a fluttering white garden party outfit, jars against the shabbinss and menace of the neighborhood from her first appearance" (Magill 5023).