Streetcar Named Desire Quotes

"raffish charm" + "a kind of lyricism... gracefully attenuates the atmosphere and decay"

Scene 1: Stage directions

- romanticised neighbourhood

- reflects Blanche's coping mechanisms

"Elysian fields

Scene 1: Stage directions

- dwelling place of the dead

- Blanche's fate = living death = asylum

"runs between the L&N tracks and the river"

Scene 1: Stage directions

- Blanche caught between the North and South America

- new industrial America vs Old Traditional America

"roughly dressed in blue denim work clothes"

Scene 1: Stage directions

- immediately introduces Stanley as a working man

- colour and vibrancy associated with the prospering new America

"red stained package"

Scene 1: Stage directions

- sexual symbol?

- depicts Stanley as vulgar and crude

- introduces the casual violence prevalent in the Kowalski household

- Brutal reality for fragile Blanche to enter

"Don't holler at me like that"

Scene 1: Stella

- Stella as an active member of the relationship

- Comfortable enough to chastise Stanley

"suggests a moth"

Scene 1: Stage directions

- moths are attracted by light and killed by heat

- when Blanche is forced under direct lights it acts as a catalyst towards her destruction

- theme of light/ paper lantern

"streetcar named Desire... Cemeteries... Elysian Fields"

Scene 1: Blanche

- desire leads to death

- Blanche's desire is central to her downward spiral

- Elysian Fields = ancient Greek afterlife, foreshadows Blanches metaphorical death

"Blanche sits in a chair very stiffly... her hands tightly clutching her purse"

Scene 1: Stage directions

- clearly uncomfortable in an unfamiliar environment

"She pours half a tumbler of whiskey and tosses it down"

Scene 1: Stage directions

- first deception

- audience understands her dependence on alcohol

- "tosses" desperation/ familiarity with alcohol

"I've got to keep a hold of myself"

Scene 1: Blanche

- understanding of her declining mental state

- aware of her retreat into fantasy but unable to control it?

"turn that overlight off"

Scene 1: Blanche

- vanity? abid t hide her ageing

- fear of being seen or fear of her carefully constructed illusion being shattered by reality

- prefers magic of illusion to realism

- hiding the truth and fears exposure

"Only Poe! Only Mr Edgar Allan Poe!"

Scene 1: Blanche

- sophisticated and cultured references

- allusions to her high brow background and education

"You haven't said a word about my appearance"

Scene 1: Blanche

- vanity

- preoccupation with her appearance

"will it be decent"

Scene 1: Blanche

- concerned about propriety

- traditional southern values

"A different species"

Scene 1: Stella

- Darwinian- degenerative regression from civilisation

- setting up our expectations of Stanley

"He had those [medals] on when you met him?"

Scene 1: Blanche

- cynicism towards their relationship

- lust = physical attractions

"When he's away for a week I nearly go wild!"

Scene 1: Stella

- physical and carnal view of love

- animalistic nature of their relationship

"you are the one that abandoned Belle Reve"

Scene 1: Blanche

- accusative

- reproachful of Stella for leaving her alone at Belle Reve

"Belle Reve? Lost is it?"

Scene 1: Stella

- "Belle Reve" = beautiful dream

- Loss of dream now means Blanche must face the reality she has fought to escape

"The long parade to the graveyard"

Scene 1: Blanche

- witnessed the fall of the old South

- traumatic

- familiar with death

"funerals are pretty compared to deaths"

Scene 1: Blanche

- resentful of Stella's ability to separate herself from death

- romanticising the deaths of her relatives

"Why the Grim Reaper had put up his tent on our doorstep"

Scene 1: Blanche

- haunted by death

- personifies death: coping mechanism?

- hyperbolic

- metaphorical

"Where we you. In bed with your- Polack!"

Scene 1: Blanche

- accusative

- defensive

- feels blamed for the loss of Belle Reve

- resorts to derogatory language

- audience less sympathetic now?

"Animal joy is implicit on all his movements"

Scene 1: Scene directions

- contrast with Blanche's character

- animalistic

- Darwinism = survival of the fittest

"richly feathered male bird among hens"

Scene 1: Scene directions

- Stanley's arrogance and overt sexuality seen straight away

- animalistic again

- "richly" bright colours = prosperous, successful working man

"You were married once weren't you?"

Scene 1: Stanley

- prods at painful event in Blanche's life

- brutal line of questions

- prods at Blanche's most secret and sensitive fears

"Blanche is bathing"

Scene 2: Stage directions

- bathroom = Blanche's refuge

- seeks separation from Stanley + cleansing from earlier conflict with Stella

- feels unclean because of her past