Notes created by an A-level English Literature private tutor + A* student.
All key quotes for A Streetcar Named Desire organised by scene- analysed with relevant context
Edexcel English Literature A-level
STANLEY Stanley carries his bowling jacket and a red stained package Masculinity/ animalistic
from a butcher’s / he heaves the package at her Captures their sexual relationship - he hurls himself at her
Raw physical love
BLANCHE Her appearance is incongruous to this setting The play was written not long after the great depression, so
money was limited for most people.
Blanche feels like she was not a ected by this which is why
she turns up to new orleans ‘incongruous’ to the setting
Foreshadows her demise
BLANCHE - rst monologue Graveyard/ funerals/ funerals are quiet but deaths not Semantic eld of death
always /.. Don’t let me go!/ Don’t let me go!/ grim reaper/ Her language is littered with death imagery
Speaks in the rhetoric- her co n Foreshadows her demise
rhetorical abilities deteriorate as Repetition of exclamatives- mirrors her own desperation
the play progresses illustrating ‘Their breathing is hoarse’ and dependance on others
her mental decline
‘Funerals are quiet but deaths not always’ /.. ‘I want to rest I
want to breathe quietly again’ - foreshadowing her
inevitable death
Understands that she is dying + movement towards tragedy
STANLEY - SD Throws the screen door of the kitchen open/… animal joy Ideas of ownership and entitlement - women as objects for
in his being is implicit in all his movements and attitudes sexual grati cation
since the earliest manhood the centre of his life has been Animalistic metaphor - primal image
pleasure with women, the giving and taking of it/.. but
with the power and pride of a richly feathered male bird ‘Hens’ plural suggests he is not satis ed with the idea of
among hens/ gaudy seed bearer. He sizes women up up monogamy foreshadowing the rape of Blanche (also
at a glance, with sexual classi cations, crude images suggests him to be superior)
ashing into his mind and determining the way he
smiles at them. ‘Power and pride’ plosive sounds- phonology even within
stage directions reinforces his dominant masculinity
fl ffi fifi fi fiff fi
, DANIELLA SPOTO
CHARACTER QUOTE ANALYSIS
STANLEY Wheres the little woman? Infantilising Stella
Blanche? Speaks to blanche using interrogatives + monosyllabic
Blanche? language- presents himself as intimidating and a realist
Blanche? Idea of realism is further intimidating to Blanche as she
rather idealises ‘magic’
STANLEY - SD He holds it to the light to reveal its depletion Light reveals truth- further presented as a realist
Beginning of the con ict between Blanche and Stanley- Old
south attempting to in ltrate this could be seen as a
retaliation by the new south
STANLEY You were married once, weren’t you? Music of the polka rising like a heart beat
the music of the polka rises up, faint in the distance Moment of vulnerability for Blanche remembering her
husband interrupted by intrusive question by Stanley
Old and new south dichotomy
‘Faint in the distance’ mention of proximity heightens
Aristotles theory that sound is a key element in tragedy its
mention of it in the ‘distance’ suggests the plays movement
towards tragedy
fl fi
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