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    Nattamon Achavameteekul - Final Writing Assignment

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    The document provides an analysis of Tennessee Williams' use of symbolism in A Streetcar Named Desire to develop the principal themes. It discusses how Williams uses symbols of light, shadow, and a paper lantern to represent Blanche's struggle with reality and her attempts to hide behind a facade. Light represents reality, which Blanche fears revealing her deterioration. Shadow represents her fantasy world that she tries to hide within. Williams uses these symbols throughout the play to portray Blanche's declining mental state and inability to cope with reality.

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    Nattamon Achavameteekul - Final Writing Assignment

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    The document provides an analysis of Tennessee Williams' use of symbolism in A Streetcar Named Desire to develop the principal themes. It discusses how Williams uses symbols of light, shadow, and a paper lantern to represent Blanche's struggle with reality and her attempts to hide behind a facade. Light represents reality, which Blanche fears revealing her deterioration. Shadow represents her fantasy world that she tries to hide within. Williams uses these symbols throughout the play to portray Blanche's declining mental state and inability to cope with reality.

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    The document provides an analysis of Tennessee Williams' use of symbolism in A Streetcar Named Desire to develop the principal themes. It discusses how Williams uses symbols of light, shadow, and a paper lantern to represent Blanche's struggle with reality and her attempts to hide behind a facade. Light represents reality, which Blanche fears revealing her deterioration. Shadow represents her fantasy world that she tries to hide within. Williams uses these symbols throughout the play to portray Blanche's declining mental state and inability to cope with reality.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    40 views6 pages

    Nattamon Achavameteekul - Final Writing Assignment

    Uploaded by

    api-508605014
    The document provides an analysis of Tennessee Williams' use of symbolism in A Streetcar Named Desire to develop the principal themes. It discusses how Williams uses symbols of light, shadow, and a paper lantern to represent Blanche's struggle with reality and her attempts to hide behind a facade. Light represents reality, which Blanche fears revealing her deterioration. Shadow represents her fantasy world that she tries to hide within. Williams uses these symbols throughout the play to portray Blanche's declining mental state and inability to cope with reality.

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    of 6

    Writing Task 3 (Final assignment)

    Prompt:
    Analyse Tennessee Williams’s use of symbolism to develop
    the principal themes in ASND.
    (Please refer to motifs and New Plastic Theatre)

    Nattamon Achavameteekul (Jean) 1204


    ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ is a Pulitzer Prize-winning play and an oscar movie that

    amplifies the reputation of Tennessee William as a writer of this iconic play. In 1947, Tennessee

    writes this play stating many issues happening in that period. By choosing to tell this story

    through a play with a new plastic theater, greatly draws people’s attention and allows them to

    recognize the problems and consider changing society. The main character is Blanche DuBois,

    Stanley Kowalski, Stella Kowalski, Harold Mitchell or Mitch. It is a story about, Blanche

    Dubois, a former high school teacher who moved to live with her sister in New Orleans and she

    was tormented by her brother-in-law. A mentally disturbed Blanche could not accept reality and

    try to live in her fantasy world. In a streetcar named desire to play from Tennessee William, he

    utilizes symbolism to explores the theme, fantasy’s inability to overcome reality, through the

    story of Blanche developing an extreme facade to cover her identity.

    First of all, William conveys Blanche's fear of reality by symbolizing light and a paper

    lantern as a reality and a way for her to hide her reality. In this play, light represents reality for

    Blanche. As a woman whose power depends on male sexual admiration, seeing her beauty and

    dignity fading away is not acceptable for her. Therefore, she wants to avoid the light which gives

    her vision to her deterioration. For example, in the first scene, when Blanche first meets with

    Stella, she has said

    BLANCHE

    “ Now, then, let me look at you. But don't you look at me, Stella, no, no, no, not till later,

    not till I've bathed and rested! And turn that over-light off! Turn that off! I won't be looked at in

    this merciless glare! ”

    (William, 8)
    Blanche does not want her sister to see her appearance that has worsened after stressing out for

    all of the problems and drinking, so she told her sister to turn off the light to conceal herself;

    believing that she can look propriety with the addition of fancy dress. The theme is also

    highlighted by the lighting from the new plastic theater that can alter the brightness to illustrate

    Blanche’s state of mind. When the light is bright, she is facing her reality, but when the light is

    dim, she is escaping it. However, there are some situations where she can not turn the light off

    like in scene three when Blanche meets Mitch for the first time and she asks him to put the paper

    lantern to cover the light bulb.

    BLANCHE

    “I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.”

    (William, 55)

    She said after lying about her age. This sentence and the paper lantern is meant to emphasize the

    fact that she is trying to hide her identity and creating her facade to keep staying in her comfort

    zone and seduce a man. Furthermore, it can be seen in the play and it is described in the script

    that the paper lantern is a colored one with a Chinese folding pattern; it is telling that Blanche

    hides her truth behind a pleasing and vulnerable identity she created.

    With the light as a reality, William defines shadow to be the opposite, the fantasy world

    of Blanche, which helps to convey how the delusion that Blanche created to protect her drags her

    down to the worse state and destroys her in the end. The application of shadow can be seen

    throughout the story not only for emphasizing Blanche’s facade but also for setting the tone and

    atmosphere of the scene in the play. It can be seen in several scenes that Blanche lowers the light

    down to produce the shadow that she hides her true self under. An example of this is a part of the

    play in the first scene where Blanche tells Stella to turn off the light and after she does that, the
    stage operator decreases the amount of light on the stage making it darker and creating shadows.

    Nevertheless, at the end of the play, shadow alters to be the tools for others to threaten Blanche.

    This exhibits in scene ten after Stanley exposed her that all she told him is a lie. It follows with

    the stage direction says.

    “Lurid reflections appear on the wall around Blanche. The shadows are of a grotesque

    and menacing form. She catches her breath, crosses to the phone, and jiggles the hook. Stanley

    goes into the bathroom and closes the door.”

    (William, 138)

    The appearance of shadow in this scene affects Blanche differently. After knowing that her

    facade is not working and she can not live in her illusion world anymore, her shadow, described

    as a grotesque and menacing form, turns to be a reminder of all the lies she lives under which

    descends her mental state. Also, being sexually abused by Stanley shattered her self-esteem and

    exacerbate her mental condition so much that choosing to ignore reality causes less suffer for

    her. This downfall of Blanche resulting in separating her from society and depart her to an

    asylum which is a very common way to treat people with mental illness during 1940 when the

    play is written.

    To summarize, the writer applies the paper lantern, light, and shadow as symbols in this

    story to portray a theme of Blanche’s fantasy and delusion. It mainly emphasizes the conflict

    inside the mind of the character Blanche which she is fighting to claim her self-esteem by telling

    lies that satisfy her. It might be true that her mental illness is caused by her personal issues, but

    she would not have gone that far if there are people paying attention to her sign of the mental

    condition and reaching out to help. Furthermore, a mental therapy needs to be more accessible

    for everyone and receiving therapy should be normalized in the society because our emotion is
    essential to our life. However, only talking and understanding are also sufficient for taking care

    of others’ mental health. Therefore, we should prioritize the mental state of ourselves and others

    as a prevention of the suffering that could happen.


    References

    1. LitCharts. “Paper Lantern and Paper Moon Symbol Analysis.” ​LitCharts,​

    www.litcharts.com/lit/a-streetcar-named-desire/symbols/paper-lantern-and-paper-moon.

    2. Sparknotes. “Symbols”,

    ​https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/streetcar/symbols/

    3. LitCharts. “Shadow symbolism analysis”,

    https://www.litcharts.com/lit/a-streetcar-named-desire/symbols/shadows

    4. Sparknotes. “Themes”,

    https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/streetcar/themes/

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