Blanche's world is often contrasted to the world of Stanley and Stella. Blanche firmly states the kind of world she wants: "I don't want realism...I'll tell you what i want. Magic!" In what way is Blanche's world an illusion?

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Blanche's world is often contrasted to the world of Stanley and Stella. Blanche firmly states the kind of world she wants: "I don't want realism...I'll tell you what i want. Magic!" In what way is Blanche's world an illusion?

        We first meet Blanche in Scene 1 as she travels to her sister's flat in Elysian fields, New Orleans. Elysian Fields, being a mythological place, naturally leads Blanche to have high expectations and considering her sister's former residence of Belle Reve, Blanche is expecting something more grande than a two room flat in a less than respectable area but even when she sees it is not what she was anticipating she manages to almost romanticise it by relating it to something from an Edgar Allen Poe story ("Only Poe! Only Mr Edgar Allen Poe! - could do it justice!) Stella has adapted to the new way of life in New Orleans. She has lowered her standards and married "a different species" and in doing so she has maintained a grasp on reality. Blanche, by contrast, stayed in Belle Reve amidst the pretence that all was well, living in an ignorant bliss started generations back, of which she was the last survivor. She is one in a long line of people lost in illusion; her ancestors let Belle Reve get lost while they ignored the state of the deep South and their diminishing finances, instead favouring "epic fornications". Blanche continued this legacy, paying not only with the loss of their ancestral home but her sanity.

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        Throughout the play Blanche dresses in white; a symbol of the virginal image she wishes to portray but which is so far from the truth. In Scene 5 when she is talking about starsigns to Stanley and tells him she is a Virgo he asks, "What's Virgo?", to which she replies, ""Virgo is the Virgin" and he laughs at her. She is hiding secrets and memories of such significance they hurt her daily. Williams shows the audience this by the recurrent 'Varsouviana' tune, her alcohol abuse and her frequent bathing. The bathing is said to be for her nerves but ...

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