A Streetcar Named Desire

Quotes and Analysis

I can't stand a naked light bulb,
any more than I can a rude
remark or a vulgar action.
Blanche
This line clearly sets up the key theme of
illusion vs reality. 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.
They told me to take a street-car
named Desire, and transfer to one
called Cemeteries, and ride six
blocks and get off at—Elysian
Fields!
Blanche speaks these words to Eunice and the Negro
woman upon arriving at the Kowalski apartment at the
beginning of Scene One. She has just arrived in New
Orleans and is describing her means of transportation to
her sister’s apartment. The place names that Williams
uses in A Streetcar Named Desire hold obvious
metaphorical value. Elysian Fields, the Kowalskis’ street,
is named for the land of the dead in Greek mythology.
The journey that Blanche describes making from the train
station to the Kowalski apartment is an allegorical
version of her life up to this point in time. Her illicit
pursuit of her sexual “desires” led to her social death and
expulsion from her hometown of Laurel, Mississippi.
Landing in a seedy district that is likened to a pagan
heaven, Blanche begins a sort of afterlife, in which she
learns and lives the consequences of her life’s actions.
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
Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable. It is the
one unforgivable thing in my opinion and it
is the one thing of which I have never,
never been guilty.
Blanche may be deluded about a lot of
things, but she is lucid and strong on this
point. She lies and cheats and steals, but
never to hurt anyone. She wishes only to
preserve an illusion. And a fundamental
component of her illusion is that she must
believe the best of anyone she loves, and
believe them incapable of cruelty. She is,
unfortunately, unable to make this dream a
reality.
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.
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.
I'm not in anything I want to get out of.
This moment represents a major blow to Blanche's
world view. Up till now, she was unable to
imagine that her sister could be happy with the
small flat and the brutish husband. But Stella
finally drives home the point that she is not
looking for an escape. It crumbles Blanche to
learn that this way of life is embraced by someone
she loves and respects.
Poker should not be played in a house with women.
During Stanley's tantrum at the poker game, Mitch
twice remarks that women and poker are a bad mix.
This characterizes Mitch as someone who believes
women are soft and gentle and should be protected
from the roughness of poker. But it also shows that
he doesn't blame the individual - Stanley - for his
actions, but instead blames the poker game, as
though the testosterone stirred up were unavoidable
and necessary.
 

Oh, I guess he’s just not the type

that goes for jasmine perfume, but
maybe he’s what we need to mix
with our blood now that we’ve lost
Belle Reve.
In Scene Two, Blanche makes this comment
about Stanley to Stella. Blanche’s statement that
Stanley is “not the type that goes for jasmine
perfume” is her way of saying that he lacks the
refinement to appreciate fine taste as Blanche
can. She suggests that, under normal
circumstances, he would be an inadequate mate
for a member of the DuBois clan because of his
inability to appreciate the subtler things in life,
whether material or spiritual, jasmine perfume
or poetry.
Yet the second half of Blanche’s comment acknowledges that
the DuBois clan can no longer afford luxuries or delude
themselves with ideas of social grandeur. Since financially
Blanche and Stella no longer belong to the Southern elite,
Blanche recognizes that Stella’s child unavoidably will lack
the monetary and social privilege that she and Stella enjoyed.
The genteel South in which Blanche grew up is a thing of the
past, and immigrants like Stanley, whom Blanche sees as
crude, are rising in social status. Like Stanley, Stella’s child
may lack an appreciation for perfume and other fineries, but
Stanley will likely imbue him with the survival skills that
Blanche lacks. The fact that Blanche’s lack of survival skills
ultimately causes her downfall underscores the new
importance such skills hold.
I am not a Polack. People from Poland are
Poles, not Polacks. But what I am is a one
hundred percent American, born and raised
in the greatest country on earth and proud as
hell of it, so don’t ever call me a Polack.
Blanche makes derogatory and ignorant remarks
about Stanley’s Polish ethnicity throughout the
play, implying that it makes him stupid and
coarse. In Scene Eight, Stanley finally snaps and
speaks these words, correcting Blanche’s many
misapprehensions and forcefully exposing her as
an uninformed bigot. His declaration of being a
proud American carries great thematic weight, for
Stanley does indeed represent the new American
society, which is composed of upwardly mobile
immigrants. Blanche is a relic in the new
America. The Southern landed aristocracy from
which she assumes her sense of superiority no
longer has a viable presence in the American
economy, so Blanche is disenfranchised
monetarily and socially.
Find:
Themes : are fundamental and often universal ideas
explored in a literary work
Motifs : recurring structures, contrasts or literary
devices that can help to develop and inform
the text’s major themes
Symbols: are objects, character, figures or colours
used to represent abstract ideas or concepts