A Kowalski, as seen in Stanley, is “simple, straightforward, and honest.” He tolerates nothing but the bare, unembellished truth. Blanche, so to speak, “puts a gaily-colored paper lantern” on the harshness of truth. This isn’t lying to her. A lie, for Blanche, would be a betrayal of herself, of everything she believes in. Therefore, it would not only be a verbal lie but also a lie in act. Stanley abhors the paper lantern. He accepts it for nothing other than a lie and detests Blanche for deceiving others with it. This conflict is irresolvable because it originates in the essence of their personalities. To concede to the other’s view entails self-destruction.
Love is essential to both worlds but has entirely different significance for each. Stanley needs love to satisfy his animal desires. To him it is the physical act of love, no more. Blanche’s sensitivity is the key to her approach to love. She needs someone not to fulfill her basic physical desires but to protect her or she feels the need of giving herself to someone. Her concept of love is on a higher level than Stanley’s. Shunning the brutality and animality of a Kowalski, she seeks some type of communication, some capacity for devotion. Desire isn’t the lustful passion that Stanley regards it, but it is a spiritual need. Speaking of Mitch, Stella asks her, “Blanche, do you want him?” She answers, “I want to rest. I want to breathe quietly again.” She seeks security and protection for her sensitiveness against the rough edges of her surroundings.
The symbol employed most frequently by Williams in his emphasis of the essential differences in the worlds is light. It represents the reality Stanley lives by and the harshness Blanche must soften. He faces it because it is him; he is “a naked light bulb.” He faces the way things are, doesn’t delude himself into believing they are something else. Blanche did that once when she saw the truth about her young husband, and it nearly broke her. Since then she has retired into a world of shadow and illusion. “There has never been any light that’s stronger than this—kitchen—candle.” If she must have a light, she prefers candlelight. The light in her room is too strong for her; so she covers it with a paper lantern. She uses this in a symbolic explanation of her own approach to reality: “soft people have got to court the favour of hard ones... have got to be seductive—put on soft colors . . . shimmer and glow.” This then is the only way in which Blanche can cope with Stanley’s world, but his world forbids it. She must improvise, make the necessary adjustments. He tolerates no compromise. His primitive, honest manner threatens to destroy her. The two ways of life are totally incompatible; there can be no peaceful coexistence.
Thus the play is structured on the principle of presenting the two worlds, establishing what each world believes in, and then placing these worlds in a series of direct confrontations until one is destroyed.
