Synthesis Paper

Private Lives

Popular actress and singer, Miley Cyrus debuted in Hannah Montana as a girl who doubles as an average teenage girl and as a popstar. On the show, Cyrus lives a normal, private life, but when she gets on stage in the spotlight, her entire persona changes to fit the character of Hannah Montana. When she is not a rockstar, she is just an ordinary girl who struggles to live life in two worlds. In her first single “Best of Both Worlds,” Cyrus sings “you get the best of both worlds, chillin’ out take it slow, then you rock out the show.” Just as in Hannah Montana, an individual’s public persona allows him or her to associate with a prescribed group of people in a particular situation. Authors create characters who primarily exhibit the public persona; however, private situations provide for the revelation of the character’s true nature. Tennessee Williams in A Streetcar Named Desire, Edith Wharton in Age of Innocence, and F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby have characters who choose to reveal their true natures in private when they are with a kindred spirit who can relate to their emotions, situations, and actions.
Emotional situations serve as a crucible for establishing the true nature of a person.
In reacting to the stress of an emotional situation, characters reveal their true natures. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche du Bois faces insecurity as she tries to adapt into a world very different from her own. Tennessee Williams symbolically depicts Blanche’s insecurities throughout the play. For example, when Blanche first arrives, she places a Chinese lantern over a bright light, claiming that it would put a spotlight on her age. When Stanley tears the lantern off the bulb, Blanche “cries out as if the lantern was herself” (Williams 140) because the lantern is closely related to Blanche, whose outer cover is torn off to reveal her inner truths. Blanche dwells in memories of her past, rather than accepting the present. Her insecurities force...