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Summary A Streetcar named Desire key quotes
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The key quotes and its analysis of the themes that occur in A Streetcar named Desire. Created for A level English Literature use.
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A Streetcar named Desire Key quotesMasculinity
- ‘He heaves the package at her…Stanley carries his bowling jacket and a red stained
package from a butcher’s’ – Stage Directions, shows Stanley’s primitive nature
- ‘My sister has a married man! – of course that was all that I could tell about you’ –
Blanche, understands Stanley prides himself on his masculinity
- ‘Stanley, Steve, Mitch and Pablo wear coloured shirts’- Stage Directions, primary
colours contrast against Blanche’s moth-like nature
- ‘He advances and disappears. There is the sound of a blow. Stella cries out’ – Stage
directions, violence is the unfortunate accompaniment to the assertive virility that
Stella finds so attractive
- ‘He was as good as a lamb when I came back and he’s really very, very ashamed of
himself’ – Stella, dual nature of Stanley, does he have a conscience?
- ‘Stanley Kowalski; the stone age man’ – Blanche to Stanley
Marriage
- ‘When he’s away for a week I nearly cry’ – Stella
- ‘Stanley doesn’t give me a regular allowance, he likes to pay bills himself’ – Stella,
Stanley is totally domineering in the marriage
- ‘I let that place go? Where were you! In bed with your- polack!’ – Blanche,
derogatory term, use her views on class to gain superiority over Stanley
- ‘No one is going to get up so don’t be worried’ – Stanley, disrespectful to his in-laws,
contrasts to Blanche’s southern expectations
- ‘Stanley charges after Stella’ – Stage directions
- ‘I want my baby down here’ – Stanley
Sex + secrecy
- ‘…but continues a folding bed to be used by Blanche. The room beyond is a
bedroom’ – Stage directions, immediate and obvious presence of Stanley and Stella’s
bed
- ‘Animal joy in his being is implicit in all his movement and attitudes’ – Stage
directions, highlight his wild/bombastic nature, an unstoppable force, animalistic
- ‘He starts to remove his shirt’ – Stage directions, freedom in male sexuality
- ‘Blanche moves back into the streak of light. She raises her arms and stretches, as
she moves indolently back to the chair’ – Stage directions, Blanche sex appeal vs
Stanley’s overt masculinity = how they gain power
- ‘we’ve has this date from the beginning’- Stanley to blanche
- ‘He was looking through them drapes’- Stanley saying Mitch was looking through the
drapes to see Blanche in the bedroom, lack of privacy/secrecy
- ‘By coming suddenly into a room that I thought was empty- which wasn’t empty, but
has 2 people in it…’- Blanche explaining the situation with Allan, hiding his sexuality
had a big impact on her
- ‘lies, lies, inside and out, all lies’- Mitch, has whole relationship with Blanche has
been a lie, secrecy + deceptiveness
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