Streetcar Quotes (Hugo)

1

Places

New Orleans description (stage directions):

'Raffish charm...Atmosphere of decay'.

'Above the music of the 'blue piano' the voices of people on the street can be heard overlapping'.

S: 'I pulled you down off those columns and you loved it'.

Tableau — prostitute scene:

'The night is filled with inhuman voices'.

CYCLE OF EXPLOITATION: Prostitute 'rolled a drunkard', before Negro Woman is 'rooting excitedly through' the 'sequined bag' the prostitute had dropped.

Belle Reve:

Symbolic of Blanche's lost fantasy and self-destructive sexuality of old south.

'You didn't dream, but I saw! Saw! Saw! And now you sit there telling me with your eyes that I let the place go!...The Grim Reaper had put up his tent on our doorstep...Stella. Belle Reve was his headquarters!'

'Exchanged the land for their epic fornications'.

Vagueness of loss imitate B's detachment from reality, and frailty of her dream.

Barracks:

'Sometimes I slipped outside to answer their calls...Later the paddy-wagon would gather them up like daisies'.

Reflected with Mexican vendor.

The apartment:

Acts as a microcosm of the war between old, agricultural America and new, industrialised America.

Seen with how Blanche and Stanley's psychological warfare occurs entirely there.

2

Stanley. Predatorial menace.

Sexually-domineering figure:

1) Animalistic:

'[Animal joy...the power and pride of a richly feathered male bird among hens]'.

2) After Poker Night:

Summons Stella with '[heaven-splitting violence]', '[they come together in low animal moans]' and he '[lifts her off her feet]'.

3) Rape:

'We've had this date with each other from the beginning!...[She sinks to her knees. He picks up her inert figure and carries her to the bed]'. (DoM KNEELS WILLINGLY, B INVOLUNTARILY.)

4) End:

fingering open blouse of collapsed Stella.

Insecurity as an immigrant:

''Pig — Polack — disgusting — vulgar — greasy!' — them kind of words have been on your tongue and your sister's too much around here...What I am is a one hundred per cent American, born and raised in the greatest country on earth'.

Fragile masculinity:

(Huey long) '"Every man is a King!" And I am the king around here, so don't forget it!'.

3

Blanche

Physical appearance:

'Her appearance is incongruous to this setting...as if she were arriving to a summer tea of cocktail party in the garden district...delicate beauty...There is something about her uncertain manner, as well as her white clothes, that suggests a moth.'

Colours:

Soft people 'Have got to be seductive — put on soft colours, the colours of butterfly wings, and glow — make a little — temporary magic'. (Seen in scarlet satin robe.)

Light:

B: 'Daylight never exposed such a ruin'. (This is hidden with the paper lantern. She goes on to avoid Mitch's questions about her age!)

B: 'I can't stand a naked light-bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action'. (Light is linked to Stanley's brutishness, which contrasts her 'new light' or art.)

'Soft people have got to — shimmer and glow — put a — paper lantern over the light...I'm fading now!'. With electric bulbs, 'you see too plainly'.

Hides age from Mitch. When he tears lantern off, he sees Blanche has lied.

Dark, which was 'comforting', becomes 'lurid' (word used to describe Poker night) during rape — mirroring how her escape has been crushed.

Deception:

'Magic! I try to give that to people...I don't tell the truth. I tell what ought to be truth.'

'Never inside, I didn't lie in my heart'.

Reliance on Stella:

'You're all I've got in the world'.

Resistance to New Orleans:

'I thought you would never come back to this horrible place! What am I saying? I didn't mean to say that'.

Trauma:

Grey Boy: B 'didn't just love him but worshipped the ground he walked on!'

Therefore death represents the breaking of B's dream of humanity: 'The searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since had there been any light that's stronger than this — kitchen — candle...'.

Reflected upon with "Varsouviana" — only she hears the '[rapid, feverish]' tune.

Alcohol:

'I've got to keep hold of myself' (rare soliloquy).

'Put the bottle away so I won't be tempted'.

'I *can't* be *alone*! Because — as you must have noticed — I'm *not* very *well*...[her voice drops and her look is frightened]'.

CONTRIBUTES TO MADNESS OF SCENE 9 WITH MITCH:

'[The music is in her mind; she is drinking to escape it.]'

Promiscuity:

Result of trauma:

B: 'Intimacies with strangers was all I seemed able to fill my empty heart with'.

S: 'People like you abused her, and forced her to change'.

Shown with delivery boy and rape.

Bathing:

'I think I will bathe...my nerves are in knots'.

Offers escape: 'It's a Barnum and Bailey world, Just as phony as it can be — But it wouldn't be make-believe If you believed in me'.

Symbolic image of cleansing.

Madness:

Present from start: 'I *can't* be *alone*! Because — as you must have noticed — I'm *not* very *well*...[her voice drops and her look is frightened]'.

Concretises by end — after Mitch episode, wears tiara and smashes mirror. After rape, believes she is going on holiday.

Dignified departure:

Dressed in the 'blue of the robe in the old Madonna pictures', eating grapes while '[Cathedral bells chime]'.

Though initially hysterical, she ultimately leaves calmly, being led 'as if she were blind', ignoring Stella and not needing straight jacket.

4

Stella

Role:

Acts as node through which S+B fight. Given choices between S+B: i) poker night ii) don't hang back with the brutes iii) bus tickets iv) rape.

Sexual infatuation:

'A different species...I can hardly stand it when he is away for a night...'.

'[unnatural voice] I want to go away, I want to go away!'

'[Her eyes go blind with tenderness...lifts her off her feet and bears her into the dark flat.]'

'[narcotized tranquility]'.

'I was — sort of — thrilled by it'.

'Things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark' make 'everything else seem — unimportant'.

Blind after Poker night, after bus tickets and at end.

Final Choice:

'S: I couldn't believe her story and go on living with Stanley. E: Don't ever believe it. Life has got to go on.'

Breaks down in final scene:

'What have I done to my sister?'

'Blanche! Blanche, Blanche!...[she sobs with inhuman abandon]'.

Final image is of her holding baby, blouse being fingered open by Stanley and her 'luxurious sobbing', as the music '[swells]'. While B gets escape, S trapped in cycle.

5

Stanley vs. Blanche

i) Napoleonic Code

'When you're swindled under the Napoleonic code I'm swindled too. And I don't like to be swindled.'

B outwits Stanley w/ legal papers and flirting: 'We thrashed it out. I feel a bit shaky, but I think I handled it nicely, I laughed and treated it all as a joke. I called him a little boy and laughed and flirted'.

Initial acceptance of Stanley:

'Maybe he's what we need to mix with our blood now that we've lost Belle Reve'.

ii) Poker night

'[The poker players...are men at the peak of their physical manhood, as coarse and direct and powerful as the primary colours.]'

After acting salaciously towards S, heavily drinking and domestically abusing S, Stanley wins as Stella chooses him, '[blind with tenderness]', and with '[low-tone clarinet moans]' (mirroring desire).

Amplified by S's calmness contrasting B's exasperation:

'You take it for granted that I am in something that I want to get out of'.

iii) Don't hang back

'Bestial...animal...survivor of the Stone Age...Don't — don't hang back with the brutes!'.

Stella then ignores B and goes to front door to embrace Stanley:

'[with both arms, fiercely, and in full view of Blanche...[Stanley] grins through the curtains at Blanche.]

iv) Bus tickets

As birthday gift, S gives B 'Ticket! Back to laurel!'.

Varsouviana plays, S turns her back and B runs to bathroom and there are sounds of vomiting.

v) Rape

Sexual tension underlies conflict: at start, immediately asserts himself over B by removing shirt and pressuring her over marriage.

Assertion of masculinity, as he makes Blanche 'sink to her knees' and 'picks up her inert figure'.

Not that much a product of lust — there is no clarinet moaning. Only '[hot trumpet and drums]'.

vi) Lantern

'[She cries out as if the lantern was herself]'.

Overview of societal critique:

See 'seven card stud':

'This game is seven-card stud'. Was game in poker night — mixture of luck and manipulation, associated with gambling and low-life activities.

6

Blanche and Mitch. Represents false hope+ineludibility of past.

What M offered B:

'There's...so much confusion in the world...Thank you for being so kind! I need kindness now!'

'I think you have a great capacity for devotion'.

Hugging, 'You need somebody. And I need somebody, too. Could it be — you and me, Blanche?'

Kiss, and 'Sometimes — there's God — so quickly!'.

Light:

'B: I tell what ought to be truth...M: You lied to me Blanche...you're not clean enough'.

Break-up:

Tries to seduce her ('What I been missing all summer') since she isn't clean enough. B makes him leave.

7

Baby. Represents restriction, unlike regeneration promised by child in DoM.

Baby traps Blanche:

'Just me and you, Blanche'.

Baby traps Stella:

Final image: 'Life has to go on'.