Natlada Sermsintham (Earn) 1201

In Tennessee Williams’ classic play “A Streetcar Named Desire,'' Blanche Dubois, the main
female character is led to her eventual decline and downfall by her deceitful behavior and
illusions, as well as the pressure of Stanley exposing her past and truth. Her broken relationship
past has worsened her mental illness, causing her to create her own illusion world and to put on
a facade in front of others. This led to Stanley feeling curious and later on, hatred towards
Blanche and having a desire to reveal the truth to everyone. Blanche’s facade being exposed by
Stanley caused her to turn into complete insanity.

The main cause of Blanche’s downfall is her own self. All the problems created came from her
relentless lying. After what happened in Belle Reeve, she continues living in her fantasy world
and denies the reality. She lies to others, as well as herself. In scene 9, Blanche states, “I want
magic! I try to give that to people. I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth.” This
illustrates that she is not interested in truth, but rather prefers fantasy and lies, even though they
were unacceptable. By symbolizing her own lies as ‘magic,’ it can be inferred that she didn’t find
her deception as a bad thing. However, she sees them as her comfort zone. This attitude comes
from her unsuccessful desire to escape from reality of pain, vulnerability and loss. In the play,
Blanche’s deep feeling of loss and particular sensitivity to mental instability reflect William’s own
biography when her sister who had an intimate relationship with him left. His sister, ‘Rose
Williams,’ played a strong role in the development of his writing.

On top of that, with Stanley always trying to find out the truth about Blanche, Blanche’s secret
could not remain quiet. His id and desire of punishing Blanche and his power struggling required
him to reveal the truth. Stanley remarks, “I was on to you from the start.” This reflects that her
dishonesty is why Stanley didn’t trust her. By using “on the start”, this means that her deception
was obvious from when they first met. Stanley thought that it is his duty to protect his wife and
others from Blanche’s lies. To show his dominance of power, Stanley decided to do what he was
supposed to do which is exposing Blanche’s facade. By exposing her facade, her fear of reality
has now caused her to become hallucinated and turn into complete insanity. Williams depicts
the character and behavior of Stanley based on his swaggering bully father. William’s writing is a
mixture of his own experience and his family members’ characteristics.

Blanche’s illusions caused by her traumatic past along with Stanley’s pressure of power
struggling has led her to her downfall. Her past has always been haunting her and she is willing
to do anything to hide it. However, with Stanley’s desire of revealing the truth, Blanche’s
shameful past was revealed to everyone and all was lost. Blanche hallucinates, enhances her
drinking and steadily slips into her madness and later on insanity. Williams’s writing was inspired
by his family background, as well as his life that portrayed each character in A Streetcar Named
Desire. The play teaches that the truth doesn’t cost anything, but a lie could cost everything.