Streetcar Named Desire

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A Streetcar Named Desire Diction: SELECT TWO PASSAGES (at least a sentence long) featuring two rhetorical devices. Copy the segments and include them in your report. Close read the passages, and then discuss the diction specifically. Comment on how diction helps define character, set tone, further theme, etc. “All at once and much, much too completely. It was like you suddenly turned a blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow, that’s how it struck the world for me. But I was unlucky. Deluded.” pg. 72 One of the main characters in the play A Streetcar Named Desire is a tragic figure named Blanche DuBois. Stuck in a very conservative decade, her flamboyant appearance is looked down upon by others, which is a reoccurring theme throughout the entire play. As the story plays through, Blanche slowly unravels her deep, dark secrets - some of which include the suicide of her gay husband. Blanche opens up to a man named Mitch and says “It was like you suddenly turned a blind light on something that had always been half in shadow”, referring to being in love. A “blind light” shines surprisingly bright, which is how she fell in love: unexpectedly. She insinuates that she was never aware of what life was really about until she fell in love. It became a guide that helped open her eyes and her husband was the blinding light that helped her see life in a totally different angle. But she isn’t reminiscing about a wonderful time in her life, instead she says “but I was unlucky”, hinting that loved deceived her. She was so blinded by love that it was inconceivable that her husband was gay. Her “blind light” that was supposed to open up her eyes to new possibilities, shaped her to be the confused and conflicted person she is now. After the death of her husband, she lost grip on reality, causing her to live in her own lies, eventually beginning to believe
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