Explaining the use of symbols and motifs

Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” centers on Blanche, a women past her prime and her journey to her sister’s home in New Orleans in an attempt to escape her turbulent past. "I don't want realism. I want magic. I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth", said Blanche. This is just one of many symbols Tennessee Williams uses in his play to show how Blanche tries to hide the truth about herself. Throughout the play, symbols and motifs are used to show deeper meaning and higher ideas through Blanche’s character. Blanche is most closely associated with this symbol because she tries to hide all the facts about her life to have Mitch fall in love and to show that she is of high class.

Blanche does not want to face reality and show the true side of her so she chooses to stay in dim light as a way of not revealing all of her life’s problems to the world. In scene 3 of the play Blanche says, “I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action”. Tennessee Williams uses the Chinese paper lantern as a symbol to symbolize that Blanche is trying to hide herself from the reality of her. The light symbolizes the truth that Blanche is trying to hide from the world and also herself. She also doesn’t want to reveal her fading beauty in the light so she tries to hide that as well by using the paper lantern.

Throughout the play we also see Blanche constantly taking baths. This symbolizes her trying to wash away all the awful things bad deeds she has done in the past. “Here I am, all freshly bathed and scented and feeling like a brand new human being!” (Scene 2, page 1179) Through this quote, Tennessee Williams implies that Blanche is trying to start with a clean slate every time she takes a bath.

Stanley’s character symbolizes everything manly. He is aggressive, harsh and wants to dominate everything that happens in his household. When Blanche arrives at his house and starts criticizing about Stanley to Stella, Stanley’s dominant nature takes it as a threat and this causes his to bring out his animal side out of him and do whatever it takes to regain control over his relationship with Stella. The poker games also symbolize Stanley’s wins and losses. Stanley’s loss at poker symbolizes his loss to Blanche when she first arrives. Later in the play, Stanley winning at poker symbolizes the way he reveals the truth about Blanche and wins his wife back for good.

Blanche and Stanley are both victims of their own excessive desire, which leads to death. As the play progresses, Stanley and Blanche have constant arguments to gain power over each other till the point that Stanley rapes her in scene 11 just to show that he is the “boss”. Death is symbolized by the loss of Blanche to Stanley. The polka music in the background, the flowers for the dead sold by the Mexican Lady, and the prostitute robbing the homeless man are all foreshadow the loss of Blanche in the play. In the end, Blanch is dead emotionally because Stanley has finally put her in the light in front of Mitch, which causes him to break up with Blanche. Since Mitch was Blanche’s only chance for true love and success, she ends up going mentally insane and leaves Stanley’s household.

Tennessee Williams uses light and darkness as primary motifs in his play. Certain things about Blanch need to shown as hidden and others need to be exposed. For example, Blanche tries to keep her life in the dark from Mitch so he can fall in love with her world of fantasy and her perfect ideal self. Lying to herself and to others allows her to make life appear as it should be rather than as it is.

The play was originally going to be named “The Poker Night” since the entire story is about winning and losing between Blanche and Stanley. Tennessee Williams himself said, “Symbols are nothing but the natural speech of drama.” The use of symbols in “A Streetcar Named Desire” helped the readers get the higher meaning of the play. Symbols are often used to help represent the trial and tribulations of characters throughout the script. Williams uses all these symbols to augment the impact the story has on the audience and to enhance the outcome of the play.