Loa
Fantasy is presented as a performative act, a careful staged role that individuals adopt to shield themselves from the brutal truths of their own existence, holding a mirror to humanity’s innate desire to edit our own life stories when the unedited version becomes too painful t bear.
- coping mech, protecting Blair from the new American frontier
- self-destructive force leaving balance helpless and exposed as she gets expelled form the kowalski household under the illusion of the doctor as her savior.
Bc Williams prensets fantasy not as a passive daydream, but as a fragile all-consuming performance of self, it leads us to wonder: is the ultimate cost of protective fantasy the complete erasure of one’s true identity?
- Williams suggests that fantasy does not erase the true self but acts as a temporary refuge, preserving the individual through performance until the world is ready to accept the vulnerable self beneath the masking.
- Blanche fear = lost sourthern credentials after os and death of Allan grey
Seek relationships in men that reminds herself of Allen grey ‘p87, ‘after the death of grey…hunting for some protection’
Scenic from ‘her delicate beauty must avoid a string light’ and ‘I wont be looked at in this merciless glare’- represents the truth and reality, coping mech. Fantasy as a quick and instant validation of her existence- only through th curation of the world in her mind, can she still exist and be a valid and legit human being, even though the world has shunned her out. (Motif of bathing- uses the bathtub as the foundation of ‘her’ own world) Here, Williams seems to suggest that humanity resort to fantasy and enter the realm of self-delusion to temporary preserve the self until the world is ready to accept their vulnerability. E.g Williams was a social pariah bc of his sexuality, hide until the world is ready to accept his whole identity.
Blanche’s inability to tolerate the light is testament for revealing her vulnerability. Not even a ‘makeshift one’= clearly establishing the necessary adoption of light in order to salvage her fleeting existence.
Not durable to th roughness of reality.
*essentialism of protective fantasy
Ca= less sure of the reliability of protective fantasy as its performance conceals one’s amoral past rather than providing a temporary refuge.
E.g no anagnorisis- leitmotif of the gunshot combined with the unrealistic and otherworldly setting in mix of diagetic and non diegetic sounds eg polka music and eerie ‘inhuman jungle voices’, and staircase could metaphorically create a biblical afterlife hierarchy, stuck in purgatory and crisis, shot.
Perhaps Williams reveals the terrifying human paradox= the very mechanisms we create..
For survival can become the instruments of our self-destruction.
- Williams further develops the concept of fantasy though its ability to mask the insecurities of the privileged in society, making fanstasy a universal tool that is not only an exclusive tool for the vulnerable.
After men return form war, go to ‘Elysian fields’ to greet the gods and attempt to apotheosise. The link between masculinty and mythical fantasy
The men in ‘ASND’ often retreat into hyperbolic almost fantastical performances of masculinty. Maps onto Greek mythology and fantasy- Stanley doesn’t just get angry; he stages his rage w/ the bravado of Hercules and primal and hypotonic hold on Stella channels the desire and bloodlust and of Dionysius.
Thus, willliams could also expose the inherent theatrility of masculine roles, making us reflect on androcentric myths .
Poker game
