top ten quotations

Top Ten Quotations

Top Ten QuotationsA Streetcar Named DesireQuotationsStudy the following quotations and consider their significance within the play. How might they be used in an essay to help support your exploration of different elements or readings of A Streetcar Named Desire? Consider questions of form, structure, language, aspects of dramatic presentation, revelation of character, important themes and different critical interpretations of the text.BlancheThey told me to take a street-car named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at Elysian Fields!

Scene 1, p.41AnalysisThe central allegorical image of the play is this one of the streetcar which represents those forbidden sexual adventures which have brought Blanche to the land of the dead and represent the diametrically opposed Freudian impulses of eros and thanatos. Her sojourn at the Kowalskis apartment will prove a sort of staging post in her journey towards that death-in-life in the asylum which is connoted by the end of the streetcar line Cemeteries.BlancheThere are thousands of papers, stretching back over hundreds of years, affecting Belle Reve as, piece by piece, our improvident grandfathers and father and uncles and brothers exchanged the land for their epic fornications to put it plainly! The four-letter word deprived us of our plantation, till finally all that was left and Stella can verify that! was the house itself and about twenty acres of ground, including a graveyard, to which now all but Stella and I have retreated.

Scene 2, p.222AnalysisBlanches speech for the defence after Stanley accuses her of having cheated Stella lays the blame for the loss of Belle Reve squarely on their corrupt DuBois ancestors, but this only serves to stress that she is their direct heir in sexual as well as economic terms. Morally as well as financially bankrupt, Blanche represents the moribund Southern aristocracy who are utterly irrelevant in the new post-war world.MitchCould it be you and me, Blanche?

Scene 6, p.573AnalysisMitchs touching proposal springs from the one time Blanche tells him the truth about her past and reveals the story of Allan Greys suicide; his offer represents her last hope of finding someone to look after her. While she would never have seen the lumbering working-class Mitch as a suitable beau in her heyday, in her present circumstances Blanche recognises that he could offer her a lifeline. Ironically what causes him to abandon her may be her lies rather than her promiscuity, because when Stanley tells him about Blanches past, Mitch feels she has made a fool of him.StanleyI am not a Polack. People from Poland are Poles, not Polacks. But what I am is one hundred per cent American, born and raised in the greatest country on earth and proud as hell of it, so dont ever call me a Polack.

Scene 8, p.674AnalysisAs Blanche once again drops one of her unpleasant social clangers, Stanley attracts our sympathy, coming across as an all-American hero, forcefully (and rather magnificently) declaring that he is a son of Uncle Sam to his fingertips. The Old South she represents is dead in the water, while active, hardworking new Americans are popping up to claim their own piece of the American Dream.StanleyWhen we first met, me and you, you thought I was common. How right you were baby. I was common as dirt. You showed me the snapshot of the place with the columns. I pulled you down of them columns and how you loved it, having them coloured lights going! And wasnt we happy together, wasnt it all okay till she showed here?

Scene 8, p.685AnalysisThis quotation shows that, like Blanche, Stanley too has a public life and a private inner life which is comprised of intimate memories, dreams and desires. The coloured lights represent the passion between Stanley and Stella which persuaded her to abandon her aristocratic past and build a future with him in New Orleans. Unlike the cold white marble pillars of Belle Reve, apparently the setting for a Greek tragedy, Stanleys coloured lights are vibrant and vivid. Whereas Blance often wears white this is what her name means Stanley wears gaudy bowling shirts and bright silk pyjamas. This speech encapsulates Stellas dilemma, caught between the past and the future.StanleyIve been on to you from the start! Not once did you pull any wool over this boys eyes! You come in here and sprinkle the place with powder and spray perfume and cover the light-bulb with a paper lantern, and lo and behold the place has turned into Egypt and you are the Queen of the Nile! Sitting on your throne and swilling down my liquor! I say Ha-Ha! Do you hear me? Ha-Ha-Ha!

Scene 10, p.796AnalysisThis is another of the plays frequent metatheatrical references to acting and performance, as Stanley brutally strips away the pathetic remnants of Blanches dignity. Having previously referred t oher putting on her act (p.60), here he reveals his awareness of the gulf between her constant masquerades and poses and the ugly truth beneath, and in mocking her as a dime-store Cleopatra, Stanleys speech also foreshadows her eventual tragic downfall.StanleyWeve had this date with each other from the beginning!

Scene 10, p.817AnalysisStanleys words here suggest that Blanches fate has been decided all along and that the powerful sexual tension which has constantly arced between them is about to short-circuit at the climax of the play. The line jars slightly with what has come before it, as the dialogue between Stanley and Blanche appears to allow for the possibility that they have once again misunderstood one another, and that the rape was not in fact premeditated; thus its inclusion surely suggests that Blanches downfall was inevitable, and all of a piece with Stanleys ominous remark to Stella in Scene 7, Her future is mapped out for her. (p.63).EuniceDont ever believe it. Life has got to go on. No matter what happens, youve got to keep on going.

Scene 11, p.838AnalysisEunices words to Stella encapsulate her working-class gut instinct for survival and authorise her friends decision to abandon Blanche to her fate in order to go on living with Stanley. In the dog-eat-dog world of the new post-war America, Eunice knows that Stella has to put her love for her baby, her need for economic protection and the future of her marriage above her loyalty to her sister and her past, even if her feelings for Stanley are fatally compromised.BlancheI have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

Scene 11, p.899AnalysisBlanches final words show that she has finally abandoned the real world for her fantasy life and reimagines the doctor who has come to take her to the asylum as the chivalrous beau (personified by Shep Huntleigh) by whom she longs to be rescued. Ironically it was her constant search for love and support the kindness of strangers which led her to her ruin in the first place, although she seems to have accepted that she has no one else to turn to now Stella has deserted her. Several strangers appear to Blanche during the play the Young Man, the Mexican Woman, the Negro Woman and the Prostitute and each encounter seems to leave her more isolated and vulnerable than the last.SteveThis game is seven-card stud.

Scene 11, p. 9010AnalysisAs the men pick up the threads of their poker game after Blanche has been taken away to the asylum, Steves words suggest that the game of life as played in the new America is one whose rules are laid down by and serve to benefit brutal men rather than vulnerable women. In this context, perhaps Stellas decision to stand by her man may seem the only sensible one she could make.