However the paper lantern cannot last, it can only temporarily create a romantic glow and keep the truth in shadow. The paper lantern symbolizes something flimsy that is used to disguise reality, create illusion, and hide the truth. An epiphany is an 'a-ha!' moment, the moment when some new idea or concept occurs to a person. The light bulb also symbolizes an epiphany. The 'naked' light bulb symbolizes truth and reality. A symbol may have more than one meaning, or its meaning may change from the beginning to the end of a literary work. Symbolism is the use of an object, a person, a place, or an experience that represents something else, usually something abstract. She openly flirts with him and teases (not necessarily in a sexual way always, but she often seeks a reaction or attention) him as the play develops. She acknowledges Stanley ’s masculinity and animal passion from the onset of her visit. This force clearly drives Blanche, her sexual passion and desire overwhelms her at moments in the play, we see her clearly driven by forces more powerful than her. For Williams, however, the streetcar’s destination, ‘Desire’, spoke more than an undefined force of fate.

When Tennessee Williams was living in New Orleans in 1946, and was working on this play, he was so struck by the names of these two streetcars that he mentioned them in an essay he wrote at the time: 'Their indiscourageable progress up and down Royal Street struck me as having some symbolic bearing of a broad nature on the life in the Vieux Carré - and everywhere else for that matter'.Ī streetcar running directly to its destination on a predetermined course could easily be seen as a symbol of fate. There really was a streetcar in New Orleans that carried the word 'Desire' as its destination and another with 'Cemeteries'. The dominating theme of the play is its arresting and memorable title.

Sparknotes a streetcar named desire