Blanche's First Love In Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Words: 151
Pages: 1

Blanche’s revelation of the story of her first love occurs in a heavily symbolic manner. Blanche describes her all-consuming first love in terms of lightness and darkness, using the concept of light to explain her interior state as she does earlier in the play. She says that when she fell in love, the once-shadowy world seemed suddenly illuminated with a “blinding light.” She extends the metaphor when she describes the aftermath of her thoughtless, cruel remark to her husband, saying, “The searchlight . . . was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been any light that’s stronger than this—kitchen—candle.” We see in earlier scenes that a lack of light has enabled Blanche to live a lie, but now we see also that, without light,