he music symbolizes everything bad that has happened to her. The music is apparent when she is recounting the deaths of her family at Belle Reve. The music also symbolizes bad things to come. It is heard when Stanley gives her a bus ticket to go home (i.e. back to cemeteries) and when Mitch confronts her with her past. The scenes that the music is most apparent are ten and eleven. In scene ten the music is heard when Stanley is around the corner from the apartment. Because we hear the music before he is even in the apartment, Williams is setting up the scene to end in some kind of tragedy. The result will be the raping of Blanche by Stanley. In scene eleven the music is apparent just before and during the arrival of the doctor and the matron. It is heard fading away as Blanche is escorted to the mental institution. The music is the reality of Blanches life. A reality that she has used alcohol and bathing to try and rid of it. Williams correlates the lighting with Blanche in the play. To Blanche the light represents reality, the exact thing she is trying to escape. She prefers to live in a dim, semi-dark illusionary world. Because of Blanches sensitivity to her aging looks she does not like to be seen in the bright light. An example of this is when Mitch and her are dating she only saw him at night. When Blanches notices the naked light bulb in Stanley and Stella’s room she buys a delicate Chinese lantern to soften the glare. The lantern becomes a symbol of her fragileness and can be easily destroyed, as can Blanche. When Mitch and, later, Stanley tear the lantern from the light bulb, it is as if they are attacking Blanche herself and destroying her world of illusion. Williams also uses paper to symbolize Blanche. Like the piece of paper she carries, Adcock 7Blanche has been fragmented, severed, torn from one world (Belle Reve) and slipped into another (Stanley’s New Orleans) (Kolin 456). Her life ...
