Notesale: Turn your study into money

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10/03/2020

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STREETCAR PLOT + QUOTES
05 March 2018 21:28

SCENE 1
• Blanche arrives in New Orleans
○ Symbolism of the streetcars foreshadows desire leading to downfall (cemeteries)
• Blanche sets up her status
○ Talks down to Eunice as if she's inferior
○ Wears clothes which show her to be different to the people in the area
○ She acts maternally towards Stella with her address etc
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They discuss poetry and dead loved ones
• Blanche is deceptive about herself
○ She pretends that she never usually drinks
○ She dims the lights and puts a paper lantern over the bulb
• Stanley gets violent towards Stella etc and has to be restrained
• Blanche and Stella go to Eunice's until Stella goes back to Stanley
SCENE 4
• Stella acts as if nothing has happened, disregarding Stanley's behaviour as normal and part of
his character
• Blanche insults Stanley and suggests they both run away with Shep Huntleigh
○ Blanche makes it clear that Stanley scares her
○ Stella insinuates the importance of sex and lust in their relationship
• Stella reveals that Stanley doesn’t give her a regular allowance
• Blanche describes Stanley using animal imagery
○ As dangerous, backwards, bestial and primitive
SCENE 5
• Steve hits Eunice and she goes for a 'practical' drink rather than going to the police

QUOTES
• "they told me to take a street-car named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries"
○ Suggests that desire has led Blanche to death/downfall - foreshadowing
• "this - can this be - her home?"
○ Use of hyphens breaks up her speech and emphasises her shock and disbelief
• "turn that off! I won't be looked at in this merciless glare!"
○ The impact of light in the play and on Blanche - she's delicate and easily harmed
• "oh my baby! Stella! Stella for star!"
• "no, one's my limit"
• "you've put on some weight…look at my figure!
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She suggests at how awful
the deaths were compared to the funerals that Stella attended
• "the Grim Reaper had put up his tent on our doorstep!"
○ Personification of death demonstrates how threatened she felt, and how violated - violation of privacy
• "some people rarely touch it, but it touches them often"
• "so that’s the deal huh? Sister Blanche cannot be annoyed with business details right now!"
○ 'sister blanche' suggests a nun, purity and this is clearly sarcastic
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And I don’t like to be swindled"
○ The idea of joint ownership in marriage - business transaction
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But I'll be alone when she goes"
○ The idea of loneliness and this makes him and Blanche similar - perhaps why they gravitate towards each other
• "wait till I powder before you open the door"
○ She is obsessed with her appearance and how she appears to others
• "You're standing in the light, Blanche!"
○ Its clear that Blanche knows what she's doing - Promiscuous which seems to shock Stella who has a certain idea about her
sister and we see denies her past later on
• "show me a person who hasn't known any sorrow and I'll show you a shuperficial-"
• "I'm not accustomed to having more than one drink…tonight I had three"
• "I can’t stand a naked lightbulb"
• Stanley stalks fiercely through the portieres into the bedroom
○ The idea of stalking linked to animals/predators, he is dangerous and uncivilised
• They come together with low animal moans
○ Linking their relationship to something animalistic and sensory - the significance of sex in their relationship
• "how could you come back in this place last night?"
• "you're not old! You can get out"
○ Blanche feels that her age has put her in a certain box she can't get out of (trapped) but that Stella should take the
opportunity to escape which she can

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It
demonstrates the differences between the old south and the new America

SCENE 6
• Blanche and Mitch get back from their date which didn’t go very well
• Mitch asks for a kiss after Blanche rejected him over the 'other familiarity' earlier on in the
night
• They go in for a drink and Blanche makes sure to keep the lights off
○ They discuss physical appearance and physique with Mitch particularly proud of his size
but ashamed of his perspiration
○ Mitch asks Blanche's age which she avoids and discusses his mother
• Blanche tells Mitch about Alan and his suicide
○ Implies homosexuality though not explicitly and she blames herself for both his sexuality
and his death

• "she's getting' a drink…that's much more practical"
○ Shocks both Blanche and a modern audience about the nature and relative normalcy of domestic violence and the inability of
women to escape
• "I'm compiling a notebook of quaint little words and phrases I've picked up here"
• "that's under Virgo…the virgin"
○ This is clearly something that is not true about Blanche but she is keeping up this pretence and character of a Southern Belle
• "people don't see you - men don’t - don’t even admit your existence unless they are making love to you"
○ Suggests her reasoning for having sex with so many men - for attention and protection, comfort etc
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But on the other hand men lose interest quickly"
• "I've got to be good and keep my hands off children"
○ Suggests a scandal, foreshadowing the reason she was fired

SCENE 7
• Stella and Stanley are setting up for Blanche's birthday while she's in the bath
○ Symbolism of bathing/washing
• Stanley explains Blanche's fame in Laurel and how she came to be cast out by society there
○ He mentions how even the Flamingo banned her
• Blanche sings intermittently during their conversation
• Stanley reveals to Stella why Blanche was fired from her job as a teacher
○ The reason that Mitch won't be coming to her birthday (Stanley told him everything)
• Stanley tells Stella that Blanche has to leave and he has already bought her a ticket

• "it was the other little - familiarity - that I - felt obliged to - discourage"
○ 'obliged' suggests that its her duty as a woman not to give herself up so easily
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She plays to Mitch's desires to get him to pay attention to her
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P
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She'll go Tuesday!"
○ He is forceful in what he wants to happen and Stella has no say in the matter - male dominance
• "we're all so solemn
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American, born and raised in the greatest country on earth and proud of it"
• "people like you abused her, and forced her to change"
○ Stella suggests that Stanley has impacted Blanche and people like him (i
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men, disrespectful, forceful) have also done this
her whole life
• "I pulled you down off them columns and how you loved it"
○ Demonstrates the change from the old South to the new America and the fact that Stella has chosen the new America over
her old life
• "why, you haven't even shaved! The unforgivable insult to a lady!"
○ Blanche completely ignores the fact that she knows why Mitch didn’t turn up and insults him instead - changing the subject
from being about her to him
• "I don’t think I ever seen you in the light"
○ The suggestion that Blanche has hidden things from him with light - significance of the light imagery
• "I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be truth"
○ Blanche admits to her dishonesty but also thinks that she was justified in her means
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• "I received a telegram from an old admirer of mine"
○ This blatant lie is clear from the very beginning
• "how strange that I should be called a destitute woman!" When I have all of these treasures locked in my heart"
○ She questions why she should be called destitute when she has so much inside - why is wealth such an important measure?
• "Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable…it is the one thing of which I have never, never been guilty"
○ This is somewhat an acknowledgment that she has made mistakes but she takes the moral high ground suggesting that she is
far better because she has never been deliberately cruel
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Caught in- oh!"
• "maybe you wouldn't be bad to - interfere with…"
○ This is extremely sexual and uncomfortable for anyone to watch
• "we've had this date with each other from the beginning"
○ Suggests that he has been interested/that she was always going to be his prey - links to his presentation as a predatorial
animal throughout the play
• "I always did say that men are callous things with no feelings"
○ This separation between men and women is key and made by Eunice - a trustworthy and honest character
• "I couldn’t believe her story and go on living with Stanley"
• "don't ever believe it…you've got to keep on going"
○ Eunice gives Stella advice based not on her moral intuition but on what's practical
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The Varsouviana is filtered into weird distortion
○ This reflects Blanche's state of mind throughout the play and demonstrates her deterioration and insanity
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• "you! You done this, all o' your God damn interfering with things you -"
○ Demonstrates Mitch's anger and the fact that he blames Stanley for everything
• "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers"
• "now, honey
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Now, now love"
○ His attempts at comforting Stella are mainly sexual and show his lack of understanding and sensitivity
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live
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