The Coping Mechanisms

Vijayakumar, Varshithkumar

Professor J.Mignano-Brady

EGL 102

Gleeson Hall - 233

13 March 2014

Coping Mechanisms

Illusion is defined as creating an alternate version or deceptive impression of reality. During our lifetime, we are influenced by suggestions and illusions in a great variety of situations. Illusions are part of our lives. We experience it in specific situations, such as in movies, or during sleep. But it should be noted that illusion is composed of various images that are necessarily drawn from reality. Fantasy and reality do not work independently but are complimentary to each other. Fantasy does not construct illusion alone. Illusion is also a phenomenon involving our perception of reality, whether it is a "true" representation of that reality or not. However, there is always a fine line of difference between fantasy and reality. When we start believing our illusions to be the reality, we fall prey to our illusions. One should always know the boundary between reality and illusion. An illusion is absolutely beneficial until we are conscious of this boundary. In his play A Streetcar Named Desire, the author Tennessee Williams portrays Blanche as using illusion to cope with the stress of reality, to hide from her past and her fading beauty and to imagine her setting as more complacent than it is.

In A Streetcar Named Desire, the character Blanche is defined by these concepts of fantasy and illusion. She draws our attention with her sincere and fragile personality, which later on turns out to be an illusion of her own mind. She lives in the world of illusions in order to protect herself against outside threats and against her own fears. Her desperation for romance - for illusion - in her life is the only avenue remaining for her escape from her shameful past. Throughout the play, Blanche uses illusions in order to escape from her awful reality. Williams contrasts Blanche's delusions with Stanley's realism such as their conversation about women's beauty. Blanche states, "After all, a woman's charm is fifty per cent illusion" (Williams 1181). It is clearly conveyed through Blanche's character that her illusions are solely based in her insecurities and her inability to cope with her reality. Blanche's hope throughout the play is to salvage her life by using different coping mechanism: fantasy, alcoholism and illusions.

Blanche's fragile personality has grown out of many stressful situations in her past. As a way of managing the stress, she uses coping mechanisms, which are "conscious mental strategies or behaviors that individuals employ to lower anxiety" (O'Brien 9). There are two types of these mechanisms: short term and long term. Short-term