Blanche - scene 2

Question 1

‘[drawing the curtains at the windows]: Excuse me while I slip on my pretty new dress!!’

Answer 1

• aware of privacy - old south values
• closes out the out-side world - signs of fantasy vs reality & Blanche’s mental instability
• incorrect grammar - excitement - petulant / childish nature of a protected young woman from the old south

Question 2

‘Blanche comes out of the bathroom in a red satin robe’
‘Blanche throws off her robe and slips into a flowered print dress’

Answer 2

• antithetical to previous costume
• colour imagery - red connotes danger, passion and seduction
• flowers - innocence, purity, relates to her original costume
• idea of her ‘true colours’ only being exposed when she is in private
• re-establishing her façade of innocence in public

Question 3

‘Life is too full of evasions and ambiguities , I think. I like a artist who paints in strong, bold colours, primary colours’

Answer 3

• sense of irony and foreshadowing - cases of Blanche’s deceit at this point in the play which continues throughout through her façades
• use of colour imagery suggests clarity which juxtaposes Blanche’s character
• creates a stark contrast between her illusions of softness and purity, suggesting the exposure of her façades
• primary colours - the most basic, unmixed colours - much like Stanley who is direct and unapologetically himself

Question 4

‘Yes - I was flirting with your husband, Stella!’

Answer 4

• Blanche’s mental deterioration / desperation for desire from men - unaware of consequences of flirting with Stanley
• exclamative - childlike excitement - suggests how Blanche is static in child like state through losing Allan at such a young age.
• Direct address - may upset or intimidate Stella who also may be unaware of the extent of Stanley’s physical and violent capabilities

Question 5

‘how pretty the sky is! I ought to go there on a rocket and never come down’

Answer 5

• fantasy vs reality
• Blanche’s appreciation for natural world (after death of Allan?)
• symbolises the beginning of Blanche’s spiralling mental decline through ethereal and escapist language
• idea of fleeing somewhere unreachable, like a childlike dream
• context - emergence of NASA and relatively new creation of rockets