Although Williams’s protagonist in “A Streetcar Named Desire” is the romantic Blanche DuBois, the play is a work of social realism. Blanche explains to Mitch that she fibs because she refuses to accept the hand fate has dealt her. Lying to herself and to others allows her to make life appear as it should be rather than as it is. Stanley, a practical man firmly grounded in the physical world, disdains Blanche’s fabrications and does everything he can to unravel them. The antagonistic relationship between Blanche and Stanley is a struggle between appearances and reality. It propels the play’s plot and creates an overarching tension. Ultimately, Blanche’s attempts to remake her own and Stella’s existences—to rejuvenate her life and to save Stella from a life with Stanley—fail.

A recurring theme found in A Streetcar Named Desire is a constant conflict between reality and fantasy, actual and ideal. Blanche says

I don’t want realism, I want magic.

This recurring theme is read most strongly in Williams’ characterization of Blanche DuBois and the physical tropes that she employs in her pursuit of what is magical and idealized: the paper lampshade she employs to cover the harsh white light bulb in the living room, her chronically deceptive recounting of her last years in Belle Reve, the misleading letters she presumes to write to Shep Huntleigh, and a pronounced tendency toward excess consumption of alcohol.  Blanche creates her own fantasy world through the characters she plays, such as the damsel, southern belle or school teacher. She wears her costumes creating a façade to hide behind, concealing her secrets and attempting to reach her former glory, and illustrating her narcissism and inability to relate to others in a “normal” sense.

Notably, Blanche’s deception of others and herself is not characterized by malicious intent, but rather a heart-broken and saddened retreat to a romantic time and happier moments before disaster struck her life (her previous loved one, the refined Allan Gray, committed suicide during a Varsouviana Polka, as a reaction to Blanche’s revulsion when she discovered he was bisexual, after she accidentally encountered him having sex with an older man).

Then I found out. In the worst of all possible ways. By coming suddenly into a room that I thought was empty- but it wasn’t empty, it had two people in it… the boy I’d married and an older manwho had been his friend for years…

In many ways, Blanche is understood to be a sympathetic and tragic figure in the play despite her deep character flaws.

In an effort to escape the misery of her life in Laurel, Blanche drinks heavily and has meaningless affairs. She needs alcohol to stop the polka music, symbolic of Allan’s death, from running on in her head and to avoid the truth of her life. She surrenders her body to various strangers in an attempt to lose herself. She seduces young boys in memory of Allan. But her empty heart finds no peace, and her bad reputation ends her teaching career.

Though reality triumphs over fantasy in A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams suggests that fantasy is an important and useful tool. At the end of the play, Blanche’s retreat into her own private fantasies enables her to partially shield herself from reality’s harsh blows. Blanche’s insanity emerges as she retreats fully into herself, leaving the objective world behind in order to avoid accepting reality. In order to escape fully, however, Blanche must come to perceive the exterior world as that which she imagines in her head. Thus, objective reality is not an antidote to Blanche’s fantasy world; rather, Blanche adapts the exterior world to fit her delusions. In both the physical and the psychological realms, the boundary between fantasy and reality is permeable. Blanche’s final, deluded happiness suggests that, to some extent, fantasy is a vital force at play in every individual’s experience, despite reality’s inevitable triumph.