ASCND Quotes

• "Heaves the meat package at her"


  - Stage Direction for Stanley (Scene 1)Demonstrates Stanley's Hyper-masculinity as he has just come back from WWII and he has to assert his masculinity by showing he is the provider of the house. The image of the meat compares Stanley to a bear who has just brought the kill home.
• "incongruous to the setting"

  - Description of Blanche (Scene 1)Blanche is first described to be out of place as she has her old American ideals of being fragile, chaste, pure and delicate in the world of New America which destroys her.
• "...I let the place go? Where were you! In bed with your - Polack!"


  - Blanche (Scene 1)Blanche comes to rely heavily on this derogatory term. She uses her outdated idea of "class" in order to establish her superiority over Stanley.
• "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."


  - Description of Stanley (Scene 1)In the very first description of Stanley, Williams presents him as an overtly sexual man, demonstrating Stanley's hypermasculinity from the audience's first impression of him using animalistic metaphor "the power and pride of a richly feathered male bird among hens" to highlight Stanley's animalistic nature.
• "I'm not in anything I want to get out of"


  - Stella (Scene 1)This represents a major blow to Blanche's world view. She is unable to imagine that her sister could be happy with the small flat and brutish husband, but Stella makes it clear to Blanche that she is not looking for any change. This represents the differences between old and new America.
• "When he's away for a week I nearly go wild"


  - Stella (Scene 1)
• "Stanley gives a loud whack of his hand on her thigh."


  - (Scene 3)
• "Poker shouldn't be played in a house with women."

  - Mitch (Scene 3)This characterizes Mitch as someone who believes women are soft and gentle and should be protected from the roughness of poker.
• "There's so much-so much confusion in this world"

  - Blanche (Scene 3)Blanche about confusion: This suggests that Blanche is unable to understand the world of the quarter and values that Stanley and Stella hold. Blanche very much represents Old America, which during the 1950s was being replaced by an emerging New America with contrasting ideals.
• "What you are talking about is brutal desire-just-Desire!"

  - Blanche (Scene 4)Blanche's view on love: This indicates her alienation from this era as her views to love are completely different to that of Stella and Stanley. For Blanche, it is a more refined and pure form whereas, as Blanche puts it, it's just 'desire' for sexual intercourse for Stella and Stanley.
• "I don't know how much longer I can turn the trick. It isn't enough to be soft. You've got to be soft and attractive. And I-I'm fading now!"


  - Blanche (Scene 5)Blanche thinks that being 'soft' is essential to a women's beauty; this highly contrasts with the New American view of love, which is a lot more sexual and sensual. HOWEVER, through this quote, Blanche is also talking about the secretive nature of her beauty. Her illusion and deceit.
• "But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark - that sort of make everything else seem - unimportant."


  - StellaStella is explaining her overwhelming love for Stanley in terms of physical passion.
• "I am the king around here and don't you ever forget that"


  - Stanley
• "You're not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother."


  - Mitch to BlancheAfter Mitch learns about Blanche's past as a prostitute working at a hotel from Stanley, her actions has turned her unchaste and not the person she had presented herself to be.
• "We've had this date with each other from the beginning."


  - StanleyStanley saw through her illusion all along, also turns Blanche's rape into a planned act, turning Blanche into the victim she always presented herself to be.
• "I don't want realism. I want magic!"

  - Blanche
• "I couldn't believe her story and go on living with Stanley."


  - StellaEven though Stella knows deep down that Blanche was telling at least a partial truth, she must now follow her sister's example and embrace illusion over reality, in order to continue living the life she had before Blanche ever came to New Orleans.
• dramatic irony


  the audience knows something the tragic heroine does not. scene 7: "Blanche is singing... contrapuntally with Stanley's speech" Williams enhances the audience's empathy for Blanche by audibly juxtaposing her ignorant bliss with Stanley's savage attacks. While Blanche enjoys her fantasy world obliviously, Stanley destroys it.
• Aristotle's catharsis


  feeling of intense fear/ pity which purifies the emotions felt by the audience. scene 10: combination of expressionist theatre in "blue piano" and Stanley's pretadory movements "he takes a step towards her" emphasise to the audience how Blanche cannot escape the harshness of life. She is attacked by both her own past life, and those around her in her present life.
• speaker's accommodation


  diverging or converging to make other speaker feel comfortable. scene 8: following being stood up by Mitch, the audience's sympathy for Blanche is built by Stella's obvious attempt to accomodate her, using honorific mode of address "Mr. Kowalski" to adopt Blanche's sociolect. Given that Stanley then erupts and destroys any tranquility that Blanche may have gained from this action, the audience see how Blanche is completely unable to gain any solace in society.
• dramatic heroine


  character who undergoes dramatic fall from grace. Blanche.
• chorus


  character that breaches gap between audience and thoughts of characters. Expressionist theatre. Stella.
• how to establish characterisation, and how these elements are shown

  appearance, background, behaviour, speech style: shown by stage directions, dialogue, and observations
• hegemonic masculinity


  the prevalent view of what it is to be a man. scene 2: Stanley shows hegemonic masculinity by demanding that "what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband", showing his territorial, possessive nature.
• hegemonic femininity


  the prevalent view of what it is to be a woman "baby", "catch!", "why don't you women go up and sit with Eunice?" accusative pronoun. in this society, the woman is the subservient role. they are weak and depend on men.
• diminutive mode of address

  the informal, disrespectful form of a name: "baby" stanley to Stella throughout the play. emphasises how he sees her as weak, nothing more than an infant. also, suggests he only considers her to be worthy of the respect an infant would receive.
• honorific mode of address


  the formal, respectful form of a name "my Rosenkavalier!" (knight of the rose) scene 5. Blanches honorific mode of address to describe the working class man shows how she allows herself to be taken away by her imagination. hints towards descent into madness.
• where does Blanche and Stanley's power shift

  scene 2 and scene 10
• dysphemism


  substitution of a more offensive or disparaging word or phrase for one considered less offensive.
• euphemism


  A polite or vague word or phrase used to replace another word or phrase that is thought of as too direct or rude.
• naturalistic speech


  Williams uses features such as: short or fragmented utterances, ellipsis, elision, dialect and expletives to replicate 'natural' speech and create believable characters.
• Character's speech style (idiolect)

  The characters' speech is what gives them life and makes them believable people. The words they use convey their thoughts and emotions and help us to understand their motives. It is therefore important to look carefully at the words a dramatist puts in a character's mouth and how he makes them speak them
• Dramatic effect


  All the characters are Williams' constructs, he chooses what they say and how they say it. The language choices are designed to create a dramatic effect, you must consider and comment on what the effect is intended to be.
• Dramatic/theatrical context


  At the beginning of the 20th Century writers fascination with the past began to turn towards the economic decay symbolised by the decaying beauty of the plantations (Belle Reve). Playwrights began looking at the behaviour of the world and to address questions such as 'why did this happen?'. However, Williams asked 'what did it feel like to have this happen?' And focused on the workings of the human psyche (soul/mind/spirit)
• Historical context


  As a southerner, Williams was affected by the American Civil War. Following their defeat by the Northern states, the south suffered economically. However, this air of decaying grandeur (splendour/impressiveness) added to the romantic appeal for writers including Williams. Whilst industrialisation flourished in cities, the plantation continued to decay.
• Old South Vs New South

  Stanley represents the American dream that all men are born equal and can succeed equally, whereas Blanche represents the old world, where class and race are still important issues.
• Williams' homosexuality


  Williams was homosexual and whilst this is clearly an aspect of his work it is important to remember that for the most of his life, homosexuality remained illegal. It was however, tolerated in some places such as New Orleans.
• Cultural and Political context


  Williams saw the South as a broken and damaged place in which the decay was somehow charming. He was an almost completely non - political writer that began to move away from writing about political issues to writing about the emotional burdens of everyday life.
• Cultural and Political context


  The tensions in this play come partly from cultural conflict, as the worlds of Blanche and Stanley are so opposed that neither can understand the other. They are from different worlds where money has different values.
• Feminism


  Women in the Old South had a social and symbolic role, were expected to be passive and chaste. This world could not give Blanche what she needed and so she tried to marry into this 'culture' but she discovers that there is competition and deceit behind the facade.