Scene 4

“I was – sort of –thrilled by it”

Remind yourself of the events of scene 4 and consider how desire acts
as justification – for immorality, betrayal, cruelty…

NOW select THREE key quotations to analyse to illustrate this idea

- let’s do the above one together
 How is conflict between Blanche and Stella
presented?
Focusing on the start of the scene to the introduction of Shep, copy and
complete this table to show how Williams has presented conflict:

Linguistic feature Evidence

Use of interrogatives by Blanche “What were you thinking of?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfniNOclXKs
 Blanche’s monologue (p41)

• In your groups, annotate the speech for the following. Be sure to note down the effect of
each technique too!
- Parallelism TO CONCLUDE: Swap annotations with another
- Simile group. Is there anything you didn’t spot? Or
could add to theirs? Make sure you have
- Hyperbole
transferred key notes to your own copy
- Use of dashes
- Exclamatives
- Use of italics (to convey stress/emphasis)
- Metaphor
- Minor sentence
- Comparatives
- Imperatives
 Stanley’s arrival

p.41
Why does Williams leave Stanley outside to overhear the conversation?

He enters after Blanche’s monologue – why? Look at the stage

directions here. What does it suggest about how Blanche’s speech has
affected him?

Why does the scene finish with him grinning at Blanche?

 The symbolism of desire

“What you are talking about is brutal desire – just – Desire! – the name of
that rattle-trap streetcar that bangs through the Quarter, up one old
narrow street and down another …”

What is Blanche referring to here? How does this link with the symbolism
of the streetcar?

Find other references to this theme and analyse the language in them –
what are the messages? Does this change / develop through the play?
Let’s analyse this linguistically – write in your
notes and EXPLODE!
 The symbolism of desire
“rattle-trap streetcar”
Suggests Blanche’s views of ‘slumming it’. She was never going to fit in.

Blanche replies when asked if she has been on it: “it brought me here”.
Metaphor: for the sexual desire that ruined her life and led her here, to
live on charity.
 The linking of sex and death
• In Scene 1, Williams suggests that Blanche’s sexual history is in fact a
cause of her downfall.
• Blanche says she rode a streetcar named Desire, then transferred to a
streetcar named Cemeteries, which brought her to a street named
Elysian Fields.
• This journey, the precursor to the play, allegorically represents the
trajectory of Blanche’s life.
 The linking of sex and death
• Blanche’s fear of death manifests itself in her fears of aging and of lost beauty.
• She refuses to tell anyone her true age or to appear in harsh light that will
reveal her faded looks.
• Throughout the play, Blanche is haunted by the deaths of her ancestors,
which she attributes to their “epic fornications.”
• By continuing to assert her sexual nature she is avoiding death and staying
young
• Sex led to her husband’s death. Her husband’s suicide results from her
disapproval of his homosexuality.
• In Scene Nine, when the Mexican woman appears selling “flowers for the
dead,” Blanche reacts with horror because the woman announces Blanche’s
fate.
 Homework
• Collect evidence of where in the play the link between sex and death
is developed. It is mentioned in Sc 4 – how does this link with Scene
1?
• What other references to sex and death are there?
 Dependence of women on men
• Explore the language used in the scene to show women are
dependent on men at the time
• Are there any stereotypical representations of gender?
• How might a modern female viewer respond to that? Would it
differ from an audience in the 1940s?
• Stanley or Shep? Which is preferable?
• What other evidence in the play is there that women are reliant on
men in this time in America? Consider: Stella and Stanley,
Blanche’s relationship with Mitch