A streetcar named desire

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1 
 
How does Williams present the contrast of reality and illusion in the 
building up of a magic world? 
 
Reality inevitably provokes and thrusts the characters, in particular Blanche and 
Stella, into a world of magic and illusion for protection. Blanche’s illusions act as a 
mask and as armor against the cruelty of the truths of her past, her reality. She uses 
both magic and illusion as defense mechanisms to keep herself motivated and happy 
so she can both mentally and physically manage to live out the remainder of her life 
after the traumatic suicide. The only effective manner in which Blanche can deal with 
her past is by completely avoiding it. She twists and contorts the past into something 
entirely new, innovative, and different. 
 
Stanley as seen prior does not allow Blanche to continue living in a dream. He 
functions and represents the harsh unsympathetic reality of life that in due course 
leads to her spiral into mental breakdown, a breakdown characterized into three 
stages. 
 
Williams leaves to the imagination how illusion and reality will play into Stella’s 
future life for we see her advance into the perplexing, destructive world of illusion 
near the end of the play. 
 
Blanche serves as a constant reminder for Stella of the reality of Stanley’s violent and 
foul actions. Thus Stella desires and needs Blanche out of her house; she is not 
capable of living without Stanley especially with the upcoming birth of their first 
child. Rid of reality and consequently Blanche, Stella can continue on living a normal 
‘perfect’ life with Stanley, a life characterized by illusions. It is unclear at the end of 
the play if her mask, developed to cope with her sister’s departure and her husband’s 
suspicious actions, will result in a downfall marked by three specific stages similar to 
her sister’s. 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
Stella at the end of the play is certainly in the first stage of deterioration, she is living 
in a pretend world using illusions to shield herself from reality. Although Williams 
foreshadows an ominous downward spiral of Stella’s mental health after her jump into 
an illusionary world, in the end only imagination will tell if illusion and reality will 
result in the same distressing and traumatic events in Stella’s future as they did in her 
sister Blanche’s life.