Part of the hostility and tension between Stanley Kowalski and Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams "A Streetcar Named Desire" derives from their differing class backgrounds. Blanche, the delicate offspring of a once-wealthy Southern family of landowners who formed the aristocracy of that society, encounters the raw and unrefined Stanley. His bare language and starkly articulated perceptions of reality disturb the fragile Blanche. This paper will argue that Blanche's habit of avoiding reality by creating impressions, illusions and fabrications about her past and her present derive from the expectations of her social class, where the appearance of propriety, genteel manners and concern for the good opinion of others dominates one's behavior.
             Blanche's tendency for creating and then believing her own illusions clashes starkly with the frankness, and coarseness of Stanley, the working class man who enjoys sex, drinking, bowling and poker playing. His view of life, stripped of illusion and artificiality, sees beneath the pretenses and disguises of others. As proof of this claim, Stanley says, "Some men are took in by this Hollywood glamour stuff and some men are not." Blanche responds, "I'm sure you belong in the second category." And he says, "That's right" (Williams 39). His hotheaded nature, derived from his working class background, with little concern for refinement, has given him the mental tools for quickly diagnosing and demolishing these unrealistic defense mechanisms others have erected. When Blanche arrives under decidedly uncertain circumstances to take up residence with her sister and her brother-in-law in a small two-room apartment, Stanley follows his habit of seeking the truth or the reality behind appearances. Stanley wants proof of Blanche's claims of having lost Belle Reve, the family plantation. He initially thinks Blanche may have sold the property and wants written document...