Friday, July 24, 2015

How can I apply the quote below to Stanley and Blanche from A Streetcar Named Desire?“No two people share the same perception of reality “

I think that taking Williams' work and applying it to your
quote would be a good exercise.  The idea of two people living in different realities is
quite evident in A Streetcar Named Desire.  Blanche and Stanley
live in parallel spheres of existence, with each one striving to have their own realm
deemed supreme by Stella.  They battle one another with their multiple perceptions of
reality.  It's more than being "different" with alternate beliefs and choices.  Both
Stanley and Blanche have diametrically opposed views of the universe and the people in
it.  Neither one can afford to have the other's exist, and their dramatic interplay is
more like a dance of death where one of their visions have to perish.  In Blanche's
world, a perception of reality where Belle Reve and stately Southern manors are where
gentlemen and rules of decor are strictly respected, Stanley would be nothing more than
a servant, if that.  His crass and rude mannerisms would have been rejected as the very
representation of being "uncivilized" and "undignified."  In Blanche's reality, her
sense of self makes "sense" and it is a world that gives her comfort, precisely because
it is a view of reality that is absent in the modern
setting.


Stanley's perception of reality is one where the
realpolitik and pragmatic nature of the world emboldens the strong and the forceful.  In
Stanley's perception of reality, a working class guy with Polish parents can make it in
America because everyone has the same starting point to eke out an existence.  Blanche's
world represents the old order where social stratification was not an expression of
dignity and class, as much as it was to strangle out people from trying to appropriate
their own world and empower themselves.  For Stanley, his impression of reality is
rooted in power and the fact that he holds it in his world is a reflection of the
correct values that his world holds.  In Stanley's perception of reality, Blanche is
nothing more than a "gold digger" or some other rich "hasbeen" who is living off of some
means of income that he has to not only discover, but appropriate for
himself.


Both of them see reality differently and do so in
a manner that rejects "the other."  They cannot share the same vision of reality becuase
each one's reality is rooted in the other's rejection.

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