In Tennesse Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois is a character of weakness, confusion, and deception in direct opposition to Stanley Kowalski, the strong,well-built, crude and direct husband of Blanche's sister, Stella.
When Blanche arrives to live with Stella, her first words are those of ambivalence and confusion: "They told me to take a streetcar named Desire"; in addition, the double entendre on the word Desire is presented as Blanche rides a metaphorical streetcar of desire/lust in her life. As she talks to her sister, she is reluctant to divulge why she has left New Orleans and her job as a teacher (it is because of her lust); however, in her weakness she tells Stella in Scene I, "I want to be near you, got to be with somebody, I can't be alone."
In her confusion of what is real and what is not, Blanche tells her sister of having lost Belle Reve ["beautiful dream"], but tries to blame Stella, contending, "But you are the one that abandoned Belle Reve, not I!" When Stanley questions her later about the estate, Stella tells him,
I know I fib a good bit. After all, a woman's charm is fifty per cent illusion, but when a thing is important I tell the truth, and this is the truth: I haven't cheated my sister or you or anyone else as long as I have lived. (Scene 2)
Furthering this character trait of uncertainly and confusion, the author, Williams writes, "There is something about her uncertain manner...that suggests a moth." Yet, while she flits from one idea to another, Blanche is not drawn to the light, but rather shuns it, just as she shuns the truth, but when confronted, Blanche is truthful as she finally divulges why she has left New Orleans, Unfortunately, the light of the truth is too much for Blanche, and she, like the moth, expires in its light.
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