Streetcar Named Desire Quotes

Ramsey Parra IB English 12
Period 5 Ms. Reynolds
A Streetcar Named Desire
3/27/15 Pages 13-27
• The play takes place in a house in New Orleans called Elysian Fields. The house is between a river and some train tracks.
• Stanley arrives and yells for Stella, his wife, to catch a package of meat. He then goes bowling and Stella follows. Here, we can see gender roles early on in the play.
• Eunice lets Blanche into the apartment and goes after Stella. Soon after, Blanche finds a bottle of whiskey and takes a drink.
• Blanche talks about the quality of the apartment, asking how Stella could live here. Stella tries to explain that New Orleans is different and that the apartment isn’t so bad. Blanche promises to say no more about

it.
• Blanche explains to Stella that she had to quit her high school teaching position due to her nerves. It was so sudden that she wasn't able to let Stella know about it. However, we know this to be a lie later on in the story.
• Blanche notices that the apartment has only two rooms and she asks where she will be sleeping. Stella shows her the folding bed and explains that Stanley won't mind the lack of privacy because he’s Polish. Blanche makes it clear that she needs to stay for a while because she hates to be alone.
• This leads Blanche to tell Stella that Belle Reve, their ancestral home, has been lost. When Stella asks how it happened, Blanche reminds Stella how there has been a long line of deaths in the family and that she had to stay there and fight while Stella was "in bed with your — Polack."

Quotes
1) “Stanley carries his bowling jacket and a red-stained package from a butcher’s.”

It is noticeable how Williams uses props to emphasize Stanley’s "primitive" masculinity. Here is where the reader gets a first glimpse of Stanley’s masculinity. He shows the qualities of a stereotypical male by carrying a bowling jacket and butcher’s package.

2) “My clothes are stickin’ to me. Do you mind if I make myself comfortable? [He starts to remove his shirt.]”
Stanley’s ease and comfort contrast sharply with Blanche’s rigid sense of sexual propriety and the hidden shame she harbors. Here is the beginning of the sexual tension between the two.
3/28/15 Pages 28-73
• Stella mentions to Stanley that she is taking Blanche out for dinner and a show during his poker game at the apartment. This bothers him because he has to eat a cold plate of food Stella left for him.
• Stella tells Stanley that they have lost Belle Reve. Stanley demands to see a bill of sale or papers proving this. Stanley reminds her of the Napoleonic Code, which says that anything belonging to the wife belongs also to the husband. Therefore, if the wife is swindled, then the husband is swindled and Stanley doesn’t like to be swindled.
• Stanley looks through all the furs and jewelry Blanche has brought with her and demands to know where the money for those items came from. Stella explains that it’s all just artificial stuff and it is all cheap.
• Blanche then gives Stanley the papers from many firms, which had made loans on the plantation and says that it’s fitting all these old papers should now be in his hands.
• He takes the papers and tries to justify his suspicions by explain how he has to be careful now that Stella is going to have a baby.
• Later that night Mitch, Stanley's friend, meets Blanche. There is an instant attraction between the two. As Stella comes out of the bathroom, Blanche turns on the radio and begins a little waltz, and Mitch tries to follow her lead.
• Unexpectedly, Stanley comes into the room and throws the radio out the window. Stella screams at him and yells at everyone to go home. Stanley becomes angered and strikes Stella. The men hold Stanley while the women leave. They force him under the shower and then leave.
• After the women leave, Stanley begs to see Stella and continues to call for her until she comes down and makes up with him.

Mitch assures Blanche that everything will be fine.
• Blanche cannot believe Stella returned to him that night. She assures Blanche that Stanley was calm. Stella continues to convince her that she is quite content and happy in their current situation. Blanche ignores Stella and attempts to think of some way out of the situation, even though Stella repeatedly says she doesn't want out.

Quotes
1) "after all, a woman's charm is fifty percent illusion,"
Throughout the play, Blanche attempts to put up a façade concealing her true identity. She lies to keep up the appearance of a wealthy southern belle. She also uses the darkness to hide her true age from Mitch

2) “I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.”
Blanche takes the naked truth - the stark bare lightbulb, the rude remark - and dresses it up prettily to make everyone happier and everything easier. That she speaks of talk and action as analogous to a lightbulb shows that she considers the remedy for uncouth behavior and appearance to be a paper lantern, an external cover, rather than a change from

within.

3/30/15 Pages 106-122
• Later that evening, Blanche, Stella, and Stanley are finishing with Blanche's birthday party. Blanche does not know why Mitch hasn’t arrived yet
• Stella says that Stanley is busy eating and tells him to go wash and help her clear the table. Stanley explodes in anger, throws his plate to the floor, and warns Stella never to use such words to him again, that he is "king around here."
• Blanche plans on calling Mitch, but Stella asks Blanche not to. She still calls, but he is not home.
• The phone is ringing and when Stanley comes back from answering it, he tells Blanche that he has a birthday present for her. She is surprised and happy until she opens it and sees that it’s a bus ticket back to Laurel scheduled for Tuesday. The polka music begins to play as Blanche is unable to do anything except run away.
• Stella does not know why Stanley treated Blanche so brutally, especially since she is so nice and delicate.
• Suddenly, Stella asks Stanley to take her to the hospital, as she is expecting the child.
• Later that evening, Mitch comes to confront Blanche about her past. He turns on the lights to show Blanche’s true age. He continues, saying that he knows about how her teaching career ended. Blanche confesses to this, and goes on to talk about her other sexual encounters.
• Mitch demands to have sex with Blanche, but Blanche refuses unless he marries her. Mitch says that she’s not good enough and Blanche screams “Fire!” until he leaves.

Quotes
1) “Mr. Kowalski is too busy making a pig of himself to think of anything else!”
There is a tension in the air which explodes when Stella tells Stanley that he is making a pig of himself and that he should wash and help her clear the table. Stanley violently throws his dishes away and then announces that he is king here. This type of scene wouldn’t have happened if Blanche wasn’t living with them. However, Stanley feels the need to display his dominance in front of the women.

2) “And then 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.”
Blanche is telling Mitch the sad details of her marriage to Allan. She loved him truly, despite her disgust at his homosexuality, and something broke inside her when he died. She ties this loss to the theme of light. Blanche hides from bright lights because they expose the truth, but she also avoids them because there is no longer any light inside her to match.

3/31/15 Pages 123-142
• Blanche is wearing an old, faded gown and has a rhinestone tiara on her head. Blanche has been drinking a lot since Mitch fled. She begins talking to herself until Stanley enters.
• Blanche tells Stanley how Mitch came to her, asking for her forgiveness, but she sent him away because deliberate cruelty is not forgivable.
• Stanley attacks Blanche, saying that Blanche is lying. Blanche flees to the telephone trying to contact Shep Huntleigh, but Blanche cannot seem to make a message. She leaves the phone to get the address. Stanley replaces the phone on the hook. Blanche wants him to stand aside so she can pass, and Stanley thinks that it might not be too bad to interfere with her. As he advances toward her, Blanche breaks a bottle. He jumps on her as she sinks to the floor. He picks up her inert body and rapes her.
• Several weeks later, Stella is seen packing some of Blanche's things. There is another poker party going on. This time, Stanley is winning. This is symbolic of Stanley’s win against Blanche.
• Blanche speaks suddenly with a hysteria demanding to know what is going on. She feels trapped and wants to get out of the trap. Stella and Eunice help her get dressed. Blanche eats some unwashed grapes and thinks that she would like to die somewhere on the sea from eating unwashed grapes and be buried in a clean white sack.
• Blanche becomes hysterical not wanting to leave yet until the doctor approaches her softly and quietly. She says that she has "always depended on the kindness of strangers." The doctor leads her out and Stanley comes to comfort Stella by fondling her breasts.

Quotes
1) “We've had this date with each other from the beginning.”
This is Stanley's implicating moment. In a fundamental way, Blanche and Stanley have always been the only ones who knew what was going on. Blanche knows what part of her story is illusion, and Stanley sees through it all. The conflict of that dynamic was destined, according to Stanley, to come to a head in the bedroom. But this statement also turns Blanche's rape into a premeditated act, turning Blanche for once into as much a victim as she has long painted herself to be.
2) “Whoever you are—I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
These words, which Blanche speaks to the doctor in Scene Eleven, form Blanche’s final statement in the play. She perceives the doctor as the gentleman rescuer for whom she has been waiting since arriving in New Orleans. Blanche’s final comment is ironic for two reasons. First, the doctor is not the chivalric Shep Huntleigh type of gentleman Blanche thinks he is. Second, Blanche’s dependence “on the kindness of strangers” rather than on herself is the reason why she has not fared well in life. In truth, strangers have been kind only in exchange for sex. Otherwise, strangers like Stanley, Mitch, and the people of Laurel have denied Blanche the sympathy she deserves. Blanche’s final remark indicates her total detachment from reality and her decision to see life only as she wishes to perceive it.