A Streetcar Named Desire - Key Quotes

'This game is a seven card stud'

Closes the play. Wild poker game and it a symbol of the deception and the bluffing that has happened in the household. Evokes pathos, as it ends the play, they too serve to underline the pathos of Blanche's fate, by the very unconcern they show.

'That rattle trap streetcar'

'Haven't you ever ridden on that streetcar? It brought me here'

Blanche and Stella talking in metaphors, they both know what they're talking about.

The notion is that Blanche played on the streetcar so much due to her desires that she lost her power.

'Not for too long to hold each desperate choice'

Epigraph, like Blanche, Tennessee was driven from one sexual desire to another.

'I've got to be good and keep my hands of children'

She recognises her weakness, however she isn't aware of her reckless streak and its risk to her chance of security. Her behaviour with the young boy symbolises her desire to cling to her own youth.

'Roughly dressed in blue denim work clothes'

Costume of Stanley,

Not a great physical description of him, Williams concentrates on the impact Stanley has on people around him such as his intense masculinity, awareness of his sexual aggression at the core of his personality.

Although, he does fit into the environment better.

'Streetcar named Desire, transfer to one called Cemeteries and get off at Elysian Fields'

The Elysian fields are where the heroes go in the underworld; ultimate paradise. Yet the place is ironically, nothing like that. Sets a foreshadowing for the play with the sense of being sent away. In reality, this place is a working class community.

The symbolism of the Elysian Fields illustrates the stark contrast between what Blanche and Stella/Stanley recognize as normal/

'The scene with a kind of lyricism and gracefully accentuates to the atmosphere of decay'

Repetition of 'dim white building'

Blanche is past her prime, idea of decay. Williams romanticises the sense of slum.

The lyricism that gracefully reflects the decay conditions is intrinsic to Blanche's condition.

Her delicate beauty must avoid a strong light. There is something about her uncertain matter, as well as her white clothes, that suggests a moth'

'She is daintily dressed in

a white suit'

Moth-like, she is never definitive, she desires illusion and she courts danger- notion of if moths go too close to the light, they get burnt.

The fact her delicate beauty must avoid a strong light foreshadows how she can't be questioned.

To Mitch: 'I need kindness now'

'I have always been dependent upon the kindness of strangers'

A way for Blanche to appeal for pity and sympathy. She is a pathetic character, has had nowhere to go. Furthermore you realise the poignant truth that there has been little kindness in Blanche's life, link to 'I need kindness now'

'I tell what ought to be the case... I don't want realism, I want magic'

She feels like society has been unjust to her, she should have all these things, she chooses to live/hide in this dream world. Portrays this idea there should be some divine justice in the universe, she is the victim yet she is turned to being horrible and full of lies.

'How you love it! Having them colour lights going!'

Stanley recognises Blanche's desire for illusion.

'I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action'

She is scared of reality. The theme of light helps us to see her curious inconsistencies in her behaviour.

Her circular nature, hides from light as she is so insecure.

Mitch Scene 3

'The music fades away'

It epitomises how Mitch is moving Blanche towards happiness. She doesn't need to be lonely any more. She has found a sense of hope.

'There's so much confusion in the world...'

End of scene 3, theme of madness.

Notice how when Blanche starts retreating into her fictional world of fantasy at the first display of real violence from Stanley.

'Practical'

When eunice

'Fanning herself with a palm leaf'

A regal image. Links to the biblical reference of Palm Sunday. She says how she is going to Dallas, she is painting a wealthy life that she hasn't got.

'I want to rest...Yes, I want Mitch'

'My Rosenkavalier' (5)

'She rolls her eyes, knowing that he cannot see her face'

She craves security and is desperate. Reasoning is the wrong way round, she doesn't love him, it's a conventional self servicing relationship.

Rosenkavalier represents saviour and how he will save her. Shows how its not about genuine love but expanding from her world that isn't on her level.

She is aware of her own hypocrisy in claiming that she has 'old fashioned ideals'.

'I simply couldn't rise to the occasion'

Theme of fantasy/illusion, she is trying to achieve/be someone who she actually isn't...

'It was like you suddenly turned a blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow'

'The searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been any light that's stronger than this—kitchen—candle..."

Describes her love for her husband.

Blanche has lost her sense of confidence. The motif of light supposes that she doesn't want to be in it. Her first love was all consuming and bright, this was spoilt. She is still racked with guilt. Her light went out.

'Temperature 100 on the nose, and she soaks herself in a hot tub'

Stanley indirectly reminds the audience how Blanche is not just washing but attempting to purify her soul, we get a sense of the stifling atmosphere in the apartment.

'It's only a paper moon...it wouldn't be make-believe if you believed in me'

The make believe world is the one that she has created as a defence mechanism. Williams cross cuts her singing with Stanley's revelations about Blanche's promiscuity. The song talks about the phony, insubstantial nature of love which can become a reality if its reciprocated. he cleverly juxtaposes her fantastical idea with Stanley's revelations of her true nature.

'And for the last year or two she has been washed up like poison'

She damages everything around her, links to how she doesn't fit in and destroys things.

'Rapid, feverish'

Getting to the height of the play; corresponds to her anxieties.

'Frantically' 'Hiding the bottle in a closet crouching the mirror and dabbing her face with cologne and powder'

Sums her up, highlights the facade to her', the notion she is doing this frantically shows how she is physically getting into another character.

'There now, the shot! It always stops after that!'

It seems doubtful whether she could ever create an entire dream world as the memories of her husband's suicide are never entirely absent. She is practical, trying to explain to Mitch.

'Floros paro los muertos'

Appeared when she left Belle Reve, returning. The death of her character, who she thought it was, now its official. A physical and visual reminder of death, it accompanies her harrowing incoherent description of the belle reve deaths. The Mexican is a symbolic, expressionist figure.

'The shadows are of a grotesque and menacing form'

Blanche's worst fears and nightmares are projected onto the wall. Plastic theatre.

Williams is exposing the workings of her vulnerable mind. Expressionist technique.

'Stella pours the coke into the glass. It foams over and spills. Blanche gives a piercing cry.'

Creates a crude image of ejaculation. The staining of her white skirt emphasises how sex has corrupted her, her cry is likely a mixture of pleasure and pain.

'Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable. it is the one thing of which I have never been guilty'

This redeems her character because it shows that despite Blanche's lies throughout the play, she never intentionally sets out to hurt other people. Stanley in contrasts sets out to hurt people intentionally. In the climatic scene, she is presented as a defenceless victim and encourages us to sympathise with her.

'Red letter night for us both'

Scarlett letter, she is condemned, as Stella doesn't believe her. With the popping off of the bottle cap, it suggests no control. Relates to the phallic bottle scene when her skirt was stained. Here it anticipates the sexual explosiveness at the end of the scene.

'Tiger-tiger'

Relates to William Blake, darkness of the world, his poem collection, this line is the first line of a poem. Stanley addresses Blanche in animalistic terms, drawing her under his domination and into his violent physical world. He casts their encounter as fate, the necessary end to the primal struggle of their opposing forces.

'The blind are - leading the blind'

'I've got to get out somehow'

The quote foreshadows a tragic ending for both Blanche and Stella. Blanche and Stella are both blind, because Stella is unable to see anything but the good in Stanley, and Blanche is relying on her for support through a tumultuous time in her life furthermore, she doesn't know how to get out, goes into the bedroom by accident, series of unfortunate events.

'Stalks fiercely, snatches off the radio, tosses the instrument out the window',

The dominating power, stalking, animal. By snatching it out the window, he is physically winning the power struggle; Blanche can't go back against him.

'All human experience shows on her face'

Blanche's vulnerability leaves her sharply exposed before the cold unresponsiveness of the people who witness her defeat and represent the society in which she has been immersed: the men's poker game resumes abruptly after her dramatic exit. Stark contrast to how she was at the beginning of the play, she is overwhelmed can't be so secret anymore.

Ultimate anti-hero.

'Mixture of noise, the Varsouviana with distortion, and the jungle'

Symbolises how Blanche feels she is being hunted down, animalistic depictions to Stanley and survival of the fittest attitude, blanches' desperate fight for survival.

'Toneless as a fire bell'

The real danger is Stanley

Seizes the paper lantern, tearing it off'

It exposes the light and she cries out as it is the brightness, she is exposed and vulnerable, when he takes it off, it's the final blow she can't live in her fantasy world. Stanley is clearly heartless with how he does it. Firm end to the dream world. Furthermore, could symbolise the memory of the rape.

'What have I done to my sister!' 'Hey! Hey! Doctor!

Contrast of Stella's shame and guilt in what she has done to her sister, versus Stanley's joke, showing how he is enjoying it.