Desire is a central theme of the play, as demonstrated with the metaphor of the streetcar bearing the same name being the one that carries Blanche to Elysium Fields, representing one of her driving emotions, and the means of her undoing. Physical desire is also at the heart of Stella and Stanley’s relationship.
“They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at – Elysian Fields!” – Blanche, Scene 1
Meaning and context
- This quote is the first line Blanche speaks to Eunice upon arriving at the Kowalski’s apartment
- She has just arrived in New Orleans and describes the instructions she was given with “faintly hysterical humour”
Analysis
- Elysian Fields is named after the land of the dead in Greek mythology
- Therefore, the journey that Blanche makes from the train station to the apartment is an allegorical version of her life up to that point
- Her pursuit of sexual desires has led to her social death and banishment from her hometown, as represented by the Cemeteries, to a sort of after-life
“There 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” – Blanche, Scene 2
Meaning and context
- Blanche gives this speech to Stanley in Scene 2, after he has accused her of swindling Stella (and him) out of her inheritance
- She shows Stanley paperwork that proves she lost Belle Reve due to foreclosure on its mortgage
Analysis
- Here, Blanche links her family’s decline into poverty with the behaviour of its male members, specifically their “epic fornications”, over the generations
- Like Blanche, the DuBois ancestors have maintained an outward appearance of refinement, while secretly pursuing their sexual desires
- She is the last in a long line of ancestors who cannot express their sexual desire in a healthy manner
Paired quotation:
“Since earliest manhood the centre of his life has been pleasure with women, the giving and taking of it, not with weak indulgence, dependently, but with the power and pride of a richly feathered male bird among hens” – Stage directions, Scene 1
“He sizes women up at a glance, with sexual classifications, crude images flashing into his mind and determining the way he smiles at them” – Stage directions, Scene 1
Meaning and context
- These stage directions describe Stanley before he first meets Blanche in Scene 1
- He enters loudly, throwing open the screen door of the kitchen, and his description is summed up as one of a “gaudy seed-bearer”
Analysis
- These stage directions place Stanley firmly as both masculine and dominant:
- For Stanley, masculinity and sexuality are connected
- The reference to the “taking” of women’s pleasure foreshadows his eventual rape of Blanche
- He sees women as objects of sex and determines their worth on this basis:
- Stanley is not interested in anything else they might offer
- He is described as having the “power and pride of a richly feathered male bird”, suggesting his arrogance and belief that he is at the centre of a woman’s universe
“But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark – that sort of make everything else seem – unimportant” – Stella
“What you are talking about is brutal desire – just Desire! – the name of that rattle-trap street-car that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another…” – Blanche
“Haven’t you ever ridden on that street-car?” – Stella
“It brought me here. – Where I’m not wanted and where I’m ashamed to be…” – Blanche, Scene 4
Meaning and context
- Stella is trying to explain how she feels about Stanley and why she stays with him even though he hits her
- Blanche does not understand how that kind of physical passion can be true love
Analysis
- Here, the sisters are talking in metaphors
- For Stella, love and physical attraction are inseparable:
- The sexual dynamic she has with Stanley keeps them together
- Blanche can recognise desire, but tries to pretend that she can’t and refuses to get on board:
- She speaks of it with disdain
- She links desire with shame, as it was her desire that brought her to her current predicament
Paired quotation:
“You’re not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother” – Mitch, Scene 9
“Tiger – tiger! Drop the bottle-top! Drop it! We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning!” – Stanley, Scene 10
Meaning and context
- The first quote is spoken by Mitch when he visits Blanche after learning the truth about her past
- Mitch attempts to have sex with Blanche, but Blanche tells him that he must marry her first – this is his response
- The second quote is spoken by Stanley to Blanche just before he rapes her
- Blanche has broken a bottle and waves it at Stanley in a feeble act of self-defence
- Following this, the stage directions tell us that he carries her to the bed
Analysis
- When Mitch arrives, Blanche is clinging on to the illusion that he might still want to marry her, and that she is a Southern Belle
- Mitch, however, believes that he has been lied to:
- For him, Blanche is simply a liar pretending to be virtuous
- He therefore thinks that, if she has had that many men, then one more won’t matter
- He is astonished at her reaction, which underlines the lack of understanding between them
- Mitch speaks plainly, while Blanche still uses poetic language, emphasising the different worlds they represent
- Stanley’s words hint at the inevitability of their situation from the moment they met:
- Blanche was always aware of his dominant masculinity, and behaved flirtatiously in response to it
- Stanley breaks taboos by raping his sister-in-law while his wife is giving birth to their child:
- This final violation is what sends Blanche into insanity
