"It's Just an Illusion" & A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams


" I couldn't go on believing her story and live with Stanley" (Stella, 1232).
The play “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams uses illusions to cover up the harsh truth which people deny. Blanche creates an illusion for everyone around her in order to hide her promiscuous past. This works on everyone except Stanley, who sees through her and her manipulating lies. This is all too much for Stella to handle and the stress forces her into labor and she and Stanley go to the hospital. That night Stanley comes home and rapes Blanche. He said, “We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning!” (Stanley, 1231). This destroys Blanche and it takes her grasp of the real world away. She has constant delusion that some rich man is going to take her on a cruise. When Blanche confides to Stella and tells her what Stanley did. Stella then says, “I couldn't go on believing her story and live with Stanley" (Stella, 1232). This shows that if she believes Blanche it would destroy the perfect illusion of her and Stanley’s ideal relationship. Stella thinks that they have it good, but in reality it is all just about their physical attraction. In real life, Stanley isn’t this amazing person. He is a drunk that hits his pregnant wife and rapes her sister. The illusions allow Stella to be happy and that’s all that matters to her so she denies her sister and stays with Stanley.

People all over become trapped in their own illusions in order to avoid the truth. High schools are filled with teens that lie to themselves all the time. Everyone goes through that time where they want to fit in so they pretend to be someone they are not and lose themselves in it. You become someone you’re not just to belong and change your look and views to get new friends. This happens all the time. Friends get into a little fight and then try to find another place to fit in. When there are no places they change themselves in order to belong. But it’s an illusion as they aren’t your friends because you’re living in this fake world and you have changed yourself so they would like you. You’re living in this illusion and if you tell yourself you’re like them long enough it may become true. But the thing is it’s only an illusion because there was a time in your life, maybe in middle school, where you all got along. This idea that you need to belong causes so many teens to change who they really are and live in an illusion.

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