New Orleans/French quarter

Question 1

cultural diversity

Question 2

working class area

Answer 2

‘raffish charm; - working class background and allure - juxtaposes with a ‘big old place with white columns’

Question 3

Death v. life

Answer 3

• belle rvee is associated with an atmosphere of death and decay - both of a culture and also of the duBois family - ‘I used to sit here and she used to sit over there and death was as close as you are now’
• juxtaposes with vibrancy and new life of new American socity - the bright colours ‘silk shirts/pajamas’ of new America, a sense of vitality - emphasised in the baby, which juxtaposes with the papers - it is a setting which now only exists in memory

Question 4

the blue piano

Answer 4

‘a tinny piano being played with the infatuated fluency of brown fingers. This blue piano expresses the spirit of life which goes on here’
- emphasises that blanche has been placed into a new urban landscape and soundscape

Question 5

The staging of the apartment

Answer 5

• the stage is set up so that the audience can see simultaneously inside and outside of th apartment - arguably emphasising the extent tot which the actions which occur are inseperable with wider society
• the two beds are in the view of the audience at all times - emphasising the importance off sex

Question 6

portieres

Answer 6

‘there’s no door between the two rooms; - separated only by porterieres, thus emphasising a sense of sexual vulnerability to Stanley’;s violence - also emphasises
how she interrupts their sex life and is an interloper in Stanley’s kingdom
‘Blanche’s dress, a flowered print, is laid out on Stella’s bed’

Question 7

the bathroom

Answer 7

• the only sense of safety for blanche - represents femininity and safety and an almost regressive sense of comfort and cleansing, associated with compulsive ritualistic bathing of blanche
  ‘Stanley’s gaudy pyjamas lie across the threshold of the bathroom’ - serves as a visual marker of male dominance but also his encroaching on her psyche

Question 8

Stanley’s violence towards Stella’s

Answer 8

‘Stanley gives a loud whack of his hand on her thigh’ - sexual ownership and dominance
- he then hits her - ‘they speak quietly and lovingly to him’ - the poker game in the apartment is an excuse for male violence and empahsisies the sacrosacnct nature of the masculine homosocial bond, serving as a catalyst for male domestic violence
- ‘the blue piano plays for a brief interval’ emohaisisng it is part of the new American culture’

Question 9

Steve’s violence

Answer 9

‘Steve comes down, nursing a bride; - genderln ness violence is not just confined to men. emphasising the setting as a place of moral decay of modern American society
- ‘she is sobbing luxuriously, and he is cooing love words’ - they mirror Stanley and Stella’s relationship