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Jack Machell

“‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ shows how dangerous illusions can be” How far and in
what ways do you agree with this view?
Plan
• Intro
• Mitch
• Hope for Blanche
• Her lies keep them apart
• “I’ve never had real good looks at you Blanche”
• Stanley uses her ‘illusions’ to destroy Mitch and Blanche’s relationship
• Blanche’s mental state
• Blanche’s chair on the moon
• Wants illusion and to escape reality- leads to drinking
• “I tell what ought to be truth”- She would rather live in a fantasy world,
than in the cold, harsh real one
• In the end, leads to her being taken away
• Treated badly for her mental state-Williams comment on mental health
• Stanley and Stella’s marriage
• Blanche’s illusions divide Stanley and Stella
• “Them nights we had together?”
• “Swindled”- Stanley believes Blanche has been cheating and lying form
the start, and her turns out to be right, which eventually leads to Stella
siding with Stanley, leaving Blanche alone again
...


In the play, A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams shows
how dangerous illusions can be through the characters, the relationships and through the near tragic conclusions to the play
...
Through him, the audience have a hint of hope for Blanche
...
She needs someone
...
Mitch comes to her house and demands “a real good look at
you”
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And what he sees disgusts him, as Blanche has all this time made

Jack Machell

herself out to be prim and proper
...
The sad irony here is that
Mitch is accepting of her being older than she wanted to be, he
would have been okay with her past if she had just told him and
not “pulled the wool” over his eyes, and created an illusion of what
she really was
...
He is commenting that illusions can destroy all three, and that
they are very dangerous
...

Throughout the play, we see her attempt to escape reality
...
Her
quote to Mitch; “I tell what ought to be the truth” shows how she
would rather live in a happy, fantasy world than that of the harsh
reality she faces
...
Nothing was done to help
her state, as everything bad that happened, led her to go deeper
and deeper into her illusions
...
His sister
was mentally ill, and he felt that they weren’t treated well
...
Williams is showing how dangerous illusions can be by
commenting on how illusions can make a person mad, and how a
world of illusions is more appealing than the real world
...

Thirdly, Stanley and Stella’s marriage shows how dangerous illusions can be as it creates a divide between them
...
Stanley believes he
has been “swindled” from the onset and doesn’t trust Blanche
whereas, of course, Blanche is Stella’s sister
...
The sad irony is, if Blanche hadn’t lied,
Stella would have still accepted her, in the same way as Mitch
...


Jack Machell

Williams shows how dangerous illusions can be by showing them to
break up not just marriages but also, to a larger extent, how they
can destroy families
...
His sense of guilt is passed through
Stella, and her actions at the end
...

Finally, Stella, at the end of the play, is also under an illusion
...
But Eunice tells her “don’t ever believe it” Stella
has to live under the illusion it didn’t happen or she cannot go on
living with Stanley
...

If Stella stops believing this illusion, she cannot go on living with
Stanley
...
Further reinforcing
how illusions can tear apart the bonds of family and siblings
...




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