A Streetcar Named Desire - Summary of the scenes

Blanche, initially alone, welcomes Mitch, but notices his ‘face like a thundercloud’. HE questions her sanity, ‘are you boxed out of your mind?’ as she continues to be plagued by ‘the polka tune they were playing when Allan’ died. Mitch states, ’I don’t think I ever seen you in the light’ as he confronts Blanche’s lies, justifying his actions with the line, ‘So I can take a look at you good and plain’. Blanche is devastated and poignantly states that ‘I don’t want realism. I want magic!', ultimately rejecting his advances by repeatedly calling out ‘Fire!’

Scene 9

Stanley, irked by his sister-in-law’s arrival, reminds Stella of the ‘Napoleonic Code’ and his rights to her property or estate. The contrast is showcased by the line, ‘The Kowalskis and the DuBois have different notions’. Blanche notes that Stanley is ‘a little on the primitive side’, yet he refuses to be ‘took in by this Hollywood glamour stuff’ and reveals that Stella is ‘going to have a baby’.

Scene 2

Blanche and Mitch return from their date, and she professes her innocence and disapproval of any sexual advances, telling him that ‘there’s no reason that you shouldn’t behave like a gentleman’. She seizes the opportunity to criticise Stanley, belling him, ‘insufferably rude’. She recalls the death of her ex-husband, Allan Grey, and his suicide, ‘he’d stuck the revolver into his mouth, and fired’. The symbolic ‘Varsouviana Polka’ plays to illustrate her guilt over her refusal to help her former husband prior to his death.

Scene 6

The Poker Night sets the scene, with Williams focusing on masculinity (‘the peak of their physical manhood’) which eventually boils over into violence with Stanley attacking his wife, ‘the sound of a blow’. Ultimately, following his desperate pleas ‘Stellahhhhh’, she returns to him, and they come together in ‘low, animal moans;.

Scene 3

Blanche DuBois arrives at ‘Elysian Fields’ via a streetcar named desire (ironic). She is described as moth-like (‘suggests a moth’) and ‘incongruous to this setting’. She reveals to her sister, Stella, that ‘Belle Reve’ (the ancestral family home) has been ‘lost’ and disapproves of her sister’s husband, the ‘Polack’, Stanley Kowalski.

Scene 1

Stanley returns home after the birth of the baby, and is alone with Blanche. She continues her descent into her fantasy world, informing him of her escape route with ‘Shep Huntleigh’ and telling him that ‘Physical beauty is passing. A transitory possession’ underlining her fragility. Stanley forces her to confront her deceptions, showcased by his outburst, ‘And look at yourself! Take a look at yourself in that worn-out Mardi Gras outfit, rented for fifty cents from some ragpicker!’ Williams’ stage directions foreshadow Stanley’s raping of Blanche, illustrated by ‘Lurid reflections appear on the wall around Blanche. The shadows are a grotesque and menacing form’. His pre-mediated intentions are underlined by his threatening warning of ‘Tiger—tiger! Drop the bottle top! Drop it! We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning!’ and the scene culminates with Stanley ‘picks up her inert figure and carries her to the bed’.

Scene 10

As the play concludes, it is evident that Stella refuses to acknowledge the events of the previous episode, she confides in Eunice that ‘she couldn’t believe her story and go on living with Stanley’. The arrival of a Doctor and Matron indicates Stella’s decision to institutionalise her sister, and Blanche’s poignant admits that she is ‘just passing through’. Stella, anguished and cracked by guilt, cries out ‘What have I done to my sister? Oh, God, what have I done to my sister?’. Violence erupts as Mitch ‘lunges and strikes at Stanley’, actions mirrored by Blanche’s desperation to avoid the Matron, who ‘pinions her arms’. Eventually, she relents, stating, ‘Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers’ and upon her departure, life in Elysian Fields seems to continue seamlessly, with the return to the poker game, ‘this game is a seven card stud’.

Scene 11

Blanche expresses her disapproval at Stella’s decision yet is rebuked by her sister’s description of her relationship as a ‘powder-keg’ and how she is ‘sort of thrilled’ by Stanley’s violent outbursts. Blanche fantasies about saving her sister, and criticises Stanley’s ‘bestial’ nature using the metaphor, ‘ the survivor of the Stone Age!’.

Scene 4

Stella aims to defend her sister from her husband’s criticism’s, who claims that ‘Sister Blanche is no lily!’. He unveils his findings on Blanche and how she has been told by the ‘mayor (of Laurel) to get out of town’ due to her getting ‘mixed up with’ a seventeen-year-old boy. He has informed Mitch of Blanche’s wrongdoings (‘wised up’), much to Stella’s horro, and this contradicts with Blanche’s statement that she ‘feels refreshed’ (following yet another bath).

Scene 7

The tension builds as Blanche has been ‘stood up by my beau (Mitch)’. Stanley admonishes Stella, ‘Don’t ever talk that way to me! Pig-Polack..’, instead reasserting ‘I am.. one hundred per cent American’. He issues his sister-in-law with a ‘ticket back to Laurel’. Blanche is horrified, ‘clutches her throat’ as Stella goes into labour.

Scene 8

Stanley begins to cast aspersions over Blanche’s behaviour, noting how he has been informed she had been spotted at the ‘Flamingo’. She confides in Stella how she has not informed Mitch of ‘my real age’. Her desires are illustrated in her demand to kiss the young paper boy, ‘softly and sweetly on the mouth’ before greeting her date (Mitch) as her ‘Rosenkavalier’.

Scene 5