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comparison essay of fantasy in oranges are not the only fruit and a streetcar named desire
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Significance of fantasy in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and ‘Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit’.In ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, fantasy is communicated as a sense of insanity as the concepts of
fantasy is usually associated with children. Tennessee Williams uses fantasy to show a characters
struggle as it heavily manipulates the aspects of insanity in the adult character of Blanche. In
contrast, ‘Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit’ heavily relies on the sense of fantasy in order to show the
childlike struggles of the main protagonist Jeanette and the difficulties of understanding reality
through fantasy.
Blanche uses fantasy and illusion as a defence mechanism against her past, which is portrayed within
the narrative from the very beginning. In the beginning of the narrative ‘Elysian Fields’ is the place
that Stella and Stanley are living, in reference to greek mythology ‘Elysian Fields’ is the place of
death for heroes, this foreshadows Blanche’s unfortunate ending as she is quite literally riding
‘desire’ to her ‘place of death’. This use of foreshadowing within the narrative is extremely clever by
Tennessee Williams as whilst it foreshadows an unpleasant ending for Blanche, it also foreshadows
Blanche’s secrets being revealed and exposed. This use of fantasy within the narrative allows
Williams to reveal aspects of Blanche to the audience as well as show the slow derailing of Blanche’s
mental health.
Blanche often portrays fantasy through the sense of illusion, by focusing on the light and dark
imagery in Blanche’s obsession of appearing ‘youthful’. Blanche inhabits fantasy throughout her
entire characterisation, through the obsession of hating ‘light’. Blanche’s fantastical obsession with
light is key to understanding her character as she avoids light in order to avoid her dark secrets and
her dark past, this obsession becomes ironic as she has to ride ‘desire’ to escape her secret desire
filled past. This obsession with fantasy allows Blanche to survive the realism and avoid her past as
her ‘intimacies with strangers’ are the only survival for her ‘empty heart’.
Blanche inhabits fantasy through her character due to her presenting herself as ‘rich’ and avoiding
her past. The way in which Blanche presents herself is all fantasy and Tennessee Williams
communicates this to an audience through the characterisation of Stanley. Stanley directly
represents realism within the narrative as he often calls Blanche out for lying (‘some people rarely
touch it but it touches them often’). The contrast of these characters allows Blanche to appear more
insane, as well as unbelievable which is evident as even when Stanley the ‘animalistic’ character
attacks Blanche, no one believes her due to the strong obsession with fantasy in which Blanche hides
from.
On the other hand, in ‘Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit’ Jeanette Winterson uses a theme of fairy
tales and religion in order to present to the audience the struggles of Jeanette. Whilst fantasy is
common in a child mindset, Jeanette uses fantastical stories in order to understand the difficult
concepts of reality, such as mathematics or even the difficulties of the expectations in which
Jeanette faces regarding religion and the pentecostal definition of ‘perfection’.
In Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit Jeanette uses fantasy in order to escape the expectation she is
held under as she’s expected to become a ‘missionary’ of the church. The use of fairy tales, parables
and stories of King Arthur’s knights allows a sense of an escapist fantasy to be created which
Jeanette uses in order to understand the reality. Jeanette uses fantasy similar to blanche through the
use of hiding behind fantasy in order to find an acceptance of oneself. Whilst Jeanette uses fantasy
in order to cope with reality, it is apparent that Jeanette never fully understands reality despite
relying on fantasy as she often becomes confused with religion (‘I had an octopus inside me’).
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