Blanche while Stella and Stanley are on their way to the hospital. Angrily, he tells her he did not come to the birthday dinner because he did not want to see her anymore, enraged that she had betrayed and misled him. Mitch complains about the darkness, never being able to see her in the light. The use of black and white cinematography, with extensive use of indirect lighting in the film, adds to the shadowy, secretive atmosphere in which Blanche hides. Vulnerable, Blanche finds comfort in the shadows, hiding the ravages of time on her face. “I like dark,” Blanche says. “The dark is comforting to me.” Mitch rips the paper lantern off a light bulb, the one he had so graciously put there for her many months earlier, wanting realism and direct light reflected on her face. She prefers the pleasures of her fantasy world, not wanting to divulge her true age. Blanche says, “I don’t want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic. I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don’t tell the truth. I tell what ought to be truth.”In “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Tennessee Williams uses a great deal of symbolism to intrigue his audience in one woman’s battle for desire. One way Williams does this is through his references of Stanley’s animalistic behavior, including parading around in his symbolic “brilliant pink pajamas” that he wore on the night of his wedding’ thus, resulting in the brutal desire act of rape. I believe the symbolism is what made the novel one of Williams most recognized novels. The symbolism’s progressed the plot, helped in character growth, and even foreshadow future events, such as Blanche’s reaction to her stained dress foreshadowing the future event of Stanley raping her....
