secrecy / exposure Flashcards
“faded white stairs”
white used as a motif to reflect purity but the weathered condition of the stairs reflects that if you live long enough corruption is unavoidable, that a life of purity is not a life lived yet society expects us to pretend and create an image of this purity and innocence that is impossible to sustain
“delicate beauty must avoid a strong light”
light reflecting honesty/exposure, blanche is only beautiful and desirable when not fully exposed (both physical and metaphorical) her age juxtaposes her debutante appearance
“daylight never exposed so total a ruin!”
daylight is natural, softer exposure that blanche cant handle showing how far she is hiding away from the truth, daylight also reflects society and the outside world which Blanche doesnt want to accept is moving on and changing
“theres no door between the two rooms, and Stanley- will it be decent?”
setting creates lack of privacy and increases tension in desire for secrecy and delusion, impossible to uphold when completely surrounded by stanley and stella
[he holds the bottle to the light to observe it… “Have a shot?”
stanley immediately presented as the exposure and threat to blanches way of lide, juxtaposition between him (man, new orleans, changed by the war, modern job) and her (women, south, changed before the war, stuck in the past) he is the threat of society blanche is so scared of
