Throughout A Streetcar Named Desire, themes of escape and the struggle between fantasy and reality are explored through several unique and artistic ways.
Blanche, the protagonist, constantly tries to escape themes of death which seem to follow her everywhere regardless. She tries to escape the reality of her life-changing by lying to herself and those around her. She tends to run and deceive herself and others to avoid her problems.
Stanley, the antagonist, and arguably Blanche’s foil character, is firmly set in a reality that cripples and crushes him. He uses drinking to try to cope and perhaps escape but tends to bring those problems he tried to forget with him, taking these things out on the people around him and his home.
The set of the play points at another important aspect of the central theme stated above: reality is inescapable. The set is an apartment open to the street. There is no sort of shelter or protection from the space outside the apartment. It leaves everything visible to everyone and gives the characters nowhere to hide. The audience can see this discomfort and the street helps highlight different plot points as they happen in the apartment like Stanley’s violence or Blanche’s promiscuity. This set makes every lie Blanche tells completely null and void. The audience can literally see the truth. Conversely, this means for Stanley there is no separation between the pressures and stresses of the world outside the apartment and the people within the apartment. There is no sanctuary for either character exposing them to the harsh reality of the world around them and exposing their actions to the audience.
All of this is a uniquely artistic way of demonstrating this central theme of fantasy vs. reality. It is something both physical and emotional and adds to an overall sense of vulnerability and discomfort to the play as a whole.