PUBLISHED WRITING #2

 Johann James Zachariah 

Professor J. Mignano Brady 

Literature for the Soul 

16 March 2023 

It’s All Just an Illusion: Published Writing #1 

 

In the play “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams, we are taken to the early 1920’s era where a woman named Blanche is dealing with her past as she moves in with her sister where the problems only get worse for her as she tries to cope with it. When you live in an illusion that you made yourself, you only expose your mind to further pain and problems that you and others can cause you. When you move past the grief and the reflection of the pain that happened upon you, that’s when you become a new person, a rationale human being. 

 

Throughout the play we see Blanche trying to live and convince everyone the truth that she made being in the dream world or events that she created in her brain, as she uses that to run or cope with the trauma that happened to her in the past. We also see that she’s trying to run away from the problems once and for all as she’s trying to find someone to lean on and run away with them after having nowhere to go. In Scene 9 Blanche says to Mitch, “-I met you. You said you needed somebody. Well, I needed somebody, too. I thanked God for you, because you seemed to be gentle –a cleft in the rock of the world that I could hide in! But I guess I was asking, hoping –too much!” (Blanche, Scene 9). We saw that she was looking for comfort and warmth from someone that she can lean on for the rest of her life and to hide all her problems behind, unfortunately she didn’t get what she hoped for as truth is like fate, you can never hide or run from fate as it’s bound to be exposed to whole world at one point or another. It could have happened after Blanche and Mitch started a life, but fate intervened through Stanley bringing out the truth in her lies. Blanche must have also felt guilty for her husband’s suicidal death because of the words that she said. In Scene 6, Blanche says to Mitch, “It was because on –on the dance floor – unable to stop myself –I'd suddenly said -” I saw! I know! You disgust me...” (Blache, Scene 6). Blanche had finally told Mitch the truth, but not everything, she decided to leave the part as how she lived and managed her life after her husband’s death to make her seem like a lady for Mitch. Blanche blames herself for saying that to her husband as that caused him to kill himself. Catching her husband in an affair and later hearing about his death left a big scar on her mind, all because she couldn't stop herself from being angry at her husband -whom she loved- who cheated on her in a homosexual relationship.  

Blanche’s lies were bound to be exposed since someone recognized her from town which led to Stanley finding out about Blanche’s lies and causing the relationship between Blanche and Mitch to break. All of Blanche’s lies were built upon grief and guilt as she was unable to move past her husband’s incident leading to not getting over the grief and guilt just building up caused her to create an illusion where everything is okay and she’s living a happy life but in reality, she was only hurting herself more by trying to cover the lies by even more lies leading to the start of her downfall with Mitch, Stella and Stanley. In “Coping with grief” by Claire Picton, she says, “Grief, after all, is 'a part of life, and should not be denied expression' (Weston et al 1998). If you ever experience such feelings after traumatic incidents, I urge you to acknowledge that you have been affected” (Picton, 1). By trying to overcome grief and guilt you’re showing maturity and wisdom to care for yourself, which Blanche couldn’t do as she hoped to. Blanche got married to her husband at a young age which can correlate to the maturity part in grief and getting over it after all she was a young woman who had to witness terrible incidents that broke her. In Scene 9 when Mitch confronts Blanche about the truth that he heard from Stanley, Blanche says, “After the death of Allan –intimacies with strangers was all I seemed able to fill my empty heart with... I think it was panic, just panic, that drove me from one to another, hunting for some protection... I was played out. You know what played out is? My youth was suddenly gone up the water-sprout...” (Blanche, Scene 9). Now we see how that naïve young woman was filling the grief in her heart and later relying on just that for almost half of her life causing her to not overcome the grief and guilt. When she had finally found Mitch, she decided to hide her past through lies and finally become mature for Mitch, but it was all in vain as the tower built on lies collapsed by the sight of truth. 

 

Trying to establish relationships through lies will never work out as it is fated to be known at some point and all you can think about are your actions and live with the regret that caused you. Lies formed upon grief is more of an excuse that you give to the other person, maturity can also be a part of it as a matured mind help you go through with grief overcoming the pain which can lead to a new path of life with no regrets following you as you move forward in your life. Blanche could have had a life with no regrets, no lies and no illusions but she was just a young girl who had fallen in love and lost everything. 

 

Works Citied 

Picton, Claire. "Coping with grief." Emergency Nurse, vol. 14, no. 9, Feb. 2007, p. 1. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A159862867/AONE?u=sunyfarm_main&sid=bookmark- AONE&xid=f678fd34. Accessed 21 Mar. 2023.