SCND symbolism

Blanche

• blanche = white = pure, innocent

  → its ironic because even though thats how she wants to present herself like “i have old fashion ideals“ its the opposite of her true nature

Du Bois

• means made of wood, which is quite opposite to her fragile nature and nervous condition

• her old life was more like a jungle or forest due to her promiscuity that she would try to conceal and so it was hard to see through and detect the real Blanche

• Du suggests aristocracy/nobility

stella

• latin for star - suggesting hope and stability she is the stabilising element of the play containing character traits from both Stanley + Blanche

belle reve

• name = beautiful dream → emphasises blanches tendency to cling to illusions like she tries to do with belle reve

• grammatical mistake for belle is feminine but reve is masculine → it underlies that belle reve is imperfect and crumbling away = blanche

light

blanche- tries to avoid any light as light makes the picture clearer blanche wants to avoid this so she doesn’t have to confront reality and that her beauty is fading

→the lantern how she wants to hide behind and not be exposed to the truth + the pattern distracts the eye just like blanche tries to do with her lies and cultural assertion

blue piano

• b talking about loss of her family and belle reve

• when she kisses the young boy

  → stands for depression and loneliness + longing for love

• stanleys victory over blanche as it was heard when she is being taken away to the mental institution

varsouviana polka

• when blanche is confronted with her past/truth

  → represents death and immanent disaster

• when she’s lost in her illusions with shep huntleigh the varsouviana is heard in distortion = her mental state

blanche as a moth

• moth mainly lives during the night = blanche wants to live in fantasy away from reality and truth

stanley as an ape

“ape like about him”

meat package

the false pretense of Stanley’s primal masculinity

the raw meat is as if he has brought back his kill like a stone man would

but its been “packaged” the hunter archetype stanley aspires to be has been re-branded by the consumer capitalism of new america