Blanche's character is shaped by her blindness to true reality. Blanche has the outward appearance of being a Southern belle, and although she was brought up in a high class family, we soon realize that her air of dignity is only an illusion. Although she is truly a sensitive creature, cultured and intelligent, and sincerely wants to be and be treated like an innocent Southern belle, the promiscuous lifestyle she has led the past few years and her alcoholism make this impossible. Blanche tries to play the role of who she would like to be. When Blanche arrives at Elysian Fields to stay with her sister Stella and Stella's husband Stanley, she acts refined and sophisticated. Soon, however, her true nature is revealed when we see her secretly drinking Stanley's whisky, and then covering up the fact that she touched it. Stanley is aware that she drank his liquor, and is never fooled by Blanche's pretense of innocence. .
Blanche fails with Stanley because he is straightforward and honest, a man who will not tolerate anything but bare, harsh reality. Stanley's world of facts poses a threat to Blanche's world of illusions (Corrigan 389). It is the cold world of facts that Blanche is always trying to soften, and this clash of personality makes them forever in conflict with one another. She tries to soften the reality of who she is with her womanly charms; she .
Gordon 3.
openly admits to Stanley that a woman's charm is 50 percent illusion (Williams, Scene .
4). The only way that Blanche knows how to relate to men is by using her womanly charms and by flirting with them, so this is the way she relates to Stanley even though he is the husband of her sister. Stanley says that she never pulled "the wool over his eyes-; he was able to see through her from the beginning (Williams, Scene 10). The conflict between the viewpoints of Blanche and Stanley is an externalization of Blanche's personal conflict between illusion and reality (Corrigan 392).
