A Streetcar Named Desire Flashcards
Stanley
Acts like an animal, has an animal habit, eats like one, moves like one
Animal joy in his being is implicit in all movements and attitudes
Tiger tiger
A survivor of the stone age
Jerks open
The gaudy seed bearer
Language
Stanley
He didn’t say nothing
He don’t
I ain’t oughta go
blanche
Literature teacher, vocabulary + literary references
Survivor of the stone age,
Anthropological studies
Blanche outsider
“Her appearance is incongruous to the setting” stage directions
“Don’t hang out with the brutes”
Redecorate the flat
“I can’t stand a naked light bulb”
Blanche lies
“Fading beauty”
“One is my limit”
“Lies, inside and out, all lies”
“I want to deceive him enough to make him want me”
“I don’t want realism”.
Blanche fragile / desire
Moth
My rosenkavalier
I was fishing for a compliment Stanley
Miss dubois, gallantry
I have to admit I love to be waited on
Everything I own is in that trunk
Stanley is clear-sighted
“some people rarely touch it but it touches them often”
“Let me enlighten you on a point or two baby. I don’t like to be swindled”
Stella and blanche
“I don’t listen to you when you’re being morbid”
“I have to admit I love being waited on. It makes it seem more like home” (=served)
Ending blue piano
” the luxurious sobbing the sensual murmur fades away under the swelling music of the blue piano”
Stanley and stella
“I can hardly stand it when he is away for the night. When he’s away for a week I nearly go wide.”
Beg of scene 4 after violent poker night
“One hand rest on her belly, rounded slightly with new maternity”
=> Nature of their relationship, happy and fulfilled, no judgment ( tableau)
End of scene 4
Other tableau: after B’s discourse about Stanley, he and Stella hug for a few seconds, the light is focused on their embrace
=> Will be victorious, foreshadows ending + family preserved and new generation
Varsouviana
B: “That-music… Again.
M: What music?”
B: The Varsouviana? the polka tune they were playing when Allan-wait!
There now, the shot! It always stops after that.
M: “are you boxed out of your mind?”
Flat
“this place is a trap”
Branche tries to decorate it again
Oppression, only two rooms, can’t hide
Curtain is weak and fragile
No intimacy to change, uncomfortable + transparency of the walls on the street
Place of conflict
Bathtub is a refuge + purifies but only temporary
(After poker night or at the end before going to the asylum)
“There was nowhere else I could go”
Tennessee williams
“I don’t want to focus on guilt or blame on any one of the characters but have it as a tragedy of misunderstanding and insensitivity to others”
- gray ch
- audience shouldn’t side, human ch, see ourselves
No blame on ch but on social factors, tragedy
Blanche’s past, fate
“her ancestors epic fornication”
“You’re not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother”
“Blanche’s future is mapped out for her” Stanley and Shaw
Ending
I don’t know if I did the right thing. I couldn’t believe her story and go on living with Stanley.
Oh, god, what have I done to my sister
Death and desire
We’ve had this date
Tarantula arm
Find Allan
The opposite is desire
Ancestor’s epic fornication
