Expository essay
‘How we see ourselves, may not be how others see us’.
In A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams creates a complex yet simple network of emotions, which create the characters to perceive themselves as imperfect, with that ideal image of perfect being ones reality. Blanche in particular exposing her dark, fake side in which ones mind is the ideal image of perfection.
Many people live their lives striving for an ideal, that image of perfection. The English oxford dictionary describes perfection as ‘the state or quality of being perfect, a person or thing considered to be perfect eg the sanity perfection of her skin. Those words perfection are like a tattoo imprinted in peoples mind that they can’t erase. In A Streetcar Named Desire, the three main characters Blanche, Stella and Stanley, have lives that revolve around their individual ideals. Tennessee Williams portrays Blanche to be very concerned with her image. Blanche feels that she must portray an image of perfection at all times. Blanche states “Myself, Myself, for being such a liar! I’m writing a letter to Shep. ‘Darling Shep. I am spending the summer on the wing, making flying visits here and there. And who knows, perhaps I shall take a sudden notion to swoop down on Dallas!” this quote demonstrates her ability to state the truth that she is a liar, yet she is very concerned with her image. Blanche is a character that can be perceived as mysterious nevertheless untruthful. Blanche appears to remind the readers of the colour white, in French the word Blanche means white it’s interesting because in keeping with her name she wears a white dress and gloves in the opening scene of the play to hide her real self in the purity that white suggests. Irony and contrast are demonstrated in the play as the colour black and white are the colours Blanche is wearing when she arrives in New Orleans to suggest she is a pristine character, although however she prefers darkness and shadows to mask her physical perfections and symbolically, her sinful behaviour.