Elysian Fields: The street Elysian Fields is not what its name suggests, a paradise, but a shabby thoroughfare in a working-class district of New Orleans. By contrast, a street in Paris with the same name (but in French, Champs-élysées) is a magnificent boulevard. Blanche's attempt to see the world through the eyes of a Parisian is part of the reason for her descent into unreality and insanity.
White and Black: Blanche is wearing white clothing and gloves, as well as pearl earrings, when she arrives in New Orleans to suggest that she has a pristine character. However, she prefers darkness and shadows to mask her physical perfections and, symbolically, her sinful behavior.
Old and new, Fantasy and Reality: Blanche comes from an old fairyland world to live in the real world of a modern metropolis.
Big and Small: In her old world, Blanche lived in a large house; in her new world, she lives in a tiny apartment. The size of the apartment suggests the diminution of Blanche's fortunes–and her sanity. Speech: Blanche quotes poetry and speaks the elegant patois of aristocrats. Stanley speaks the sandpaper language of reality and brutality–coarse, crude, unvarnished.
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