A Streetcar Named Desire Key Quotes

blanche’s arrival to elysian fields - she is described as…

“incongruous to the setting”

reinforces stanley’s ‘american dream’ and his opinions on race

“one hundred percent american, born and raised in the greatest country in the world”

blanche enforcing ideals of racial purity from the old south

“he’s what we need to mix with out blood now that we’ve lost belle reve”

blanche exploits her power over stanley as a southern belle

“well, if you’ll forgive me - he’s common!”

contrast drawn between stanley and blanche’s lifestyles

“such things as art - as poetry and music” vs. “this party of apes!”

denotes blanches rejection of harsh realities and attempts to romanticise life

“i dont want realism […] i’ll tell you what i want. magic!”

stella’s submission and passivity in her marriage

“i’m not in anything i want to get out of […] people have got to tolerate each others habits”

blanche’s belief in her fantasies

“i dont tell the truth. i tell what ought to be the truth”

prolepsis to blanche’s persona breaking down throughout the play

“after all, a woman’s charm is fifty percent illusion”

reflect blanche’s need to uphold the facade of genteel femininity

“i can’t stand a naked lightbulb, any more than i can a rude remark or a vulgar action”

juxtaposition of implications of male sexuality against female sexuality

“grandfathers and fathers and uncles and brothers exchanged the land for their epic fornications”

light as an extended metaphor for love

“the searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off […] never for one moment has there been a light stronger than this - candle…”

exemplifies purity and foreshadows blanche’s self-destructive tendencies

“something about her manner […] that suggests a moth”

parallel with blanche’s interpretation - light as an extended metaphor for desire

“god, honey, it’s gonna be so sweet when we can make noise in the night the way we used to and get the coloured lights going”

encapsulating desire

“brutal desire - just - desire. the name of that rattle-trap streetcar […]” / “haven’t you ever ridden on that streetcar?”

stella reduces herself to a sexual object

“there are things that happen between a man and woman in the dark which makes everything else seem - unimportant”

motif of describing stanley as a primal, animalistic masculine

“animal joy implicit in all his movements […] a richly feathered male bird among hens”

complicit masculinity - poker scene

“poker shouldn’t be played in a house with women”

marginalised masculinity (alan grey)

“although he wasn’t the least bit effeminate looking”

mitch’s subordinate masculinity being taken over by hegemonic masculinity

“what do you want?” / “what i been missing all summer…”

mitch’s subordinate masculinity

“he seems superior to the others […] had a sensitive look”

personifies/antagonises alcohol and alcoholism

“some people rarely touch it, but it touches them often”

irony of the varsouviana

“after alan killed himself: [polka resumes in a major key]”

pathetic fallacy of the varrsouviana

“[its music rising with sinister rapidity]”, “[the rapid, feverish polka tune]”

death as a metaphor for blanche and stella’s relationship

“funerals are pretty compared to deaths. funerals are quiet but deaths - not always”

blanche’s desperation to cling to the past (belle reve)

“i took the blows in my face and body!”, “i stayed and fought for it, bled for it, almost died for it!”

hydrotherapy becoming synonymous with hysteria - blanche’s obsession with bathing

“shes soaking in a hot tub to quiet her nerves. she’s terribly upset”