A Streetcar Named Desire Quotes
CHARACTERS
BLANCHE
“Her expression is one of shocked disbelief” - can’t believe where her sister is living; class differences
“Suggests a moth” - Williams wants this; moths are attracted to light (contrast); not quite a butterfly (less
attractive); delicate
“Tightly clutching” “stiffly” - tense when she enters Stella’s home; out of her comfort zone
“Startled gesture” - easily startled
“Washes out the tumbler” - hiding the fact she’s been drinking
“Your sister hasn’t turned into a drunkard” - even though we see her relying on alcohol throughout the play
“Only Mr. Edgar Allan Poe could do it justice!” - english teacher; educated; implies Stella is living in almost a
horror show
“One’s my limit” - lies to Stella
“The Grim Reaper had put up his tent on our doorstep”
“Blanche is bathing” - she has a lot of baths throughout the play, TW: ‘plastic theatre’ = things representing
other things, i.e. washing away guilt?
“When she comes in be sure to say something nice about her appearance” - Stella is aware of Blanche’s
fragility
“Epic fornications” - blames male ancestors for acting immorally → loss of Belle Reve
“How do I look?” - feels need to get attention and approval of the men at the poker night
“Blanche moves back into the streak of light” - doing it on purpose; men can see her undressing
from the other room → attention seeking; normally avoids the light, only in the light when looking for sexual
attention
“She looks right and left as if for a sanctuary” - looking for some kind of safety; feels unsafe → out of her
comfort zone
“A notebook of quaint little words and phrases I’ve picked up here” - acting more prestige than others;
acting as if in another country, another world
“What have people been telling you about me?” - paranoid; thinks Stella is going to judge her; thinks she
has heard rumours
“You’ve got to be soft and attractive. And I-I’m fading now”
“I have to admit I love to be waited on…”
“A girl alone in the world, has got to keep a firm hold on her emotions or she’ll be lost” - sex before
marriage; ironic B was a prostitute; virginity was valued until marriage
“Let’s leave the lights off, shall we?” - doesn’t want Mitch to see her
“Voulez-vous couchez avec moi ce soir?” - french history of new orleans (Belle Reve); using her
intelligence, Mitch most likely doesn’t understand french
“It was like you suddenly turned a blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow” - light
imagery; simile: the idea of love gave her a light (light at the end of the tunnel?); opened her eyes to
something → new perspective; B + light = beauty, hiding from the light because she is losing her beauty
“I didn’t know that … I didn’t know that” - repetition emphasising how she was clueless, oblivious, not in the
wrong (?) → protecting her reputation
“He was in the quicksands and clutching at me… I was slipping in with him” - metaphor: he was falling and
dragging her in at the same time; Hart Crane suicide- sank into water; husbands suicide led to the start of
her guilt, sinking in guilt ever since
“She claps her hands to her ears and crouches over” - key, horrible moment in her past → fear,
overwhelming, shocking
“A few moments later-- a shot!” “the Polka stops abruptly” - her whole life stopped for a moment
“You disgust me” “the Polka music increases”
, “It wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed in me” - song about another person transforming life; last scene
seen was Mitch embracing her; song interspersed between Stanley’s comments about her lies → harsh
reality vs dreaming illusion
“The Varsouviana is heard… she is drinking to escape it”
“A distant revolver shot is heard. Blanche seems relieved” - Varsouviana stops when gunshot is heard,
death of husband
“I don’t want realism. I want magic!”
“I tell what ought to be truth”
“I had many intimacies with strangers. After the death of Allan- intimacies with strangers was all I seemed
able to fill my empty heart with” - searching for intimacy for protection (from the world / from herself / from
the past and her memories)
Mexican Woman: ““Flores para los muertos” [the polka tune fades out]” - mexican woman singing song to
advertise flowers used for the dead; intertwining B’s words; death of husband → death of hope, love, her
soul
“The opposite is desire” - escaping death via desire; mitch to escape memory of Allan; Stella’s baby = life
and hope, Stella and Stanley have a passionate rship = what B has been looking for
“Soiled and crumpled white satin evening gown” “scuffed silver slippers” - imperfections; wants to escape to
her ‘fantasy’ world / old south
“Slams the mirror face down with such violence that the glass cracks”
“Mr. Shep Hungtleigh. I wore his ATO pin my last year at college” - invents story of the ‘wire’ from Shep;
insanity/fantasy world
“A cultivated woman, a women of intelligence and breeding” - describing what she thinks she has
“I have all of these treasures locked in my heart” - metaphor of ‘treasures’ she has within herself, while
physically covered in fake treasures (rhinestones)
“I have just washed my hair” - links to bathing, trying to wash out memories of the assault, washing her hair
→ appearance
“A tragic radiance” - TW wants us to see her as a tragic figure, or victim; fatal flaw: insecurity, promiscuity,
memory? Become a victim of everyone, of her own past, of the system and of history- out of place, out of
her time
“I have just washed my hair” - bathing, trying to wash out memories of rape
“A look of sorrowful perplexity as though all human experience shows on her face” - overwhelmed, victim of
the whole world
“This place is a trap” - feels trapped in the house with Stanley; rships are possible traps: Stella married to
an abusive rapist
“It’s Della Robbia blue. The blue of the robe in the old Madonna pictures” - virgin mary; dichotomy of
attitudes towards women: virgin vs whore; mother figure; she is cultured- references art
“Those cathedral bells - they’re the only clean thing in the Quarter” - religion: feels something unclean about
this part of New Orleans; everything is tainted, she wants innocence/cleanliness → innocence of youth,
cleanliness (bathing)
“A very young one” - idolising youth
“Big silver watch” - money
“Her soul to heaven” “an ocean as blue as my first lover’s eyes” - remembering Alan; romanticising her
death → fantasy
STELLA
“Looks slowly down at her hands folded on the table” - sadness and/or guilt
“It’s your poker night” - aware that is is a male gathering, patriarchal
