What Harm Can a Few White Lies Do?

“Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.” – Sigmund Freud

What do humans seek? Love, happiness, and success? Science tells us that animals seek pleasure, just as humans; however, we as humans go to a much farther extent to achieve pleasure. Sigmund Freud tells us that we all have innate desires, desires we wish to enjoy without thinking about current tribulations or consequences. However Freud also states, that it is inevitable for fantasy and reality to eventually cross paths, undoubtedly causing a path of destruction. Human desires and little white lies spin a web of deception around Tennessee Williams’ play, A Street Car Names Desire.

So the question of the hour is why do people lie? Is it because the truth is so outlandish that it would be a crime just to present it as itself? Or is it just easier to lie instead of  cope with the disapproving looks and gestures that may slapped upon on us by society? Deception plays a great deal in Williams play. One of Williams’ main characters, Blanche—a fallen aristocratic socialite—battles inner demons while on her last visit to see her married younger sister, Stella; in a small apartment in New Orleans, Louisiana. But slowly her demons began to make an appearance upon her arrival, causing a composed Blanche to lose all sanity and dignity. Blanche left her home Belle Reve in Laurel, Mississippi, after losing the land to the bank, and being let go from her job as an English school teacher after the schools superintendent discovered an affair Blanche had been carrying out with a seventeen year old boy. Blanche hides her perverted desires with continuous lies and vague explanations as dialogued “…I was so exhausted by all I’d been through my—nerves broke…I was on the verge of lunacy, almost! So Mr. Graves…the superintendent—he suggested I take a leave of absence.” (Williams 1170). Without further explanation she quickly changes the subject. And once asked by Stella’s Polish husband, Stanley; how the property at Belle Reve was taken from her she simply said she did not know. However Stanley’s personal goal was to piece together Blanche’s stories in hopes of discovering the truth. Stanley acts as Blanche’s counterpart, and Stella is merely the referee. Stanley, wanting nothing short of the truth states “I don’t want no ifs, ands or buts! What’s all the rest of them papers?” (Williams 1182).  However after reviewing legal papers, Stanley was left with more unanswered questions than when he started. Now along with the constant vague answers and strange ways Blanche acted, there was no denying that the woman exuded that of a sexual feline. Blanch used sex appeal to distract men from any flaws that she had. The obvious one being that she was a fading beauty well in her early thirties. Blanche avoided light because what does light do? It shows that which cannot be seen in the dark. Williams uses light as a motif, one that Blanche avoids at all costs. Blanche cannot bear the thought of being in the light for fear that her true colors will show and all the detailed lies she has colored with them. At one point she even buys a Chinese paper lantern to cover the bare light bulb in the bedroom. “…I can’t stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action” (Williams 1189). One can infer that Blanche relates bare lights with crude remarks and actions that may be directly related to her and what society deems right. Darkness is to illusion as lightness is to clarity. And Blanche wants to live in darkness.

Blanche even attempts to woo one of Stanley’s gullible friends, Marvin; through a series of lies. At one point she even tells Stella “…He thinks I’m sort of—prim and proper, you know!...I want to deceive him enough to make him—want me…” (Williams 1203). Here Williams shows that underlying desire to lie so that one can achieve ones ultimate pleasures. In fact, Blanche is not the only one who refuses to face the music when it comes to sexual desires. Even Stella falls victim to her own sexual cravings, which Blanche so hypocritically points out after a heated fight that Stella and Stanley had the night before over music and a physical confrontation. Which only led to Stella forgiving an abusive Stanley and following out with the old saying Let Bygones be Bygones by entering their apartment and making love. Blanche attempts to show Stella that she knows Stella’s eagerness to forgive Stanley is based on heightened sexual desires but a defensive Stella states “…But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark—that sort of make everything else seem—unimportant” (Williams 1197). Blanche of course responds with “…What you are talking about is brutal desire—just—Desire!” (Williams 1197), something Blanche knows all too well. In fact, the majority of Blanche’s lies she composes are used to mask her inner desires. For instance, as mentioned in an earlier quote, Blanche fails to tell her sister about her sexual preferences towards a younger male population. However, Williams shows us that it was not just a one-time affair that she was reprimanded for but that she was a repeat offender. Once seeing a young boy collecting donations for a local newspaper, Blanche acts out of accordance to society and says “Come here. I want to kiss you, just once, softly and sweetly on your mouth! [Without waiting for him to accept, she crosses quickly and presses her lips to his.]Now run along, now quickly! It would be nice to keep you, but I’ve got to be good—and keep my hands off children” (Williams 1205). In fact, this is Williams’ finest examples of how dark human desires can be, and how we all sometimes slip from social norms and feed into our inner cravings. But the cherry to the cake is when Mitch called Blanche on her elaborate façade and she responded “ I don’t want realism. I want magic!... Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it!—Don’t turn the light on!” (Williams 1224).

One can infer, that Williams uses ideas such as fantasy, reality, deception, and desire to shed light on the inner workings of the human mind. While some people may be realists, and embrace a say it like you see it principle, others prefer to live in the shades of grey, in a fantasy world where they are perfect. But then there are people who take a little bit of both worlds and combine it to make one balanced world. A world where you face reality but indulge in a little fantasy, and perhaps from time-to-time, tell a little white lie.