Scene analysis

• The "blue piano" that can be heard in scene one is an example of the plastic theatre that Williams utilises as it later becomes a recurring motif in the play often played during moments of passion such as when Blanche attempts to seduce the young Newspaper boy
• in the opening scene, Williams uses stage directions to create the image of New Orleans being a racially diverse culture with its relatively warm and easy intermingling of races"
• Williams addresses when Stella is introduced that she is "of a background obviously quite different from her husband's"
• Blanche is presented as being in "shocked disbelief" of where her sister has ended up
• The audience first observes Blanche's deception in the first scene as she looks around the apartment for "liquor" while she already knows where it is but is pretending to Stella she does not, creating dramatic irony