Characters Flashcards
Blanche DuBois
Stella’s older sister who has come to visit New Orleans supposedly to visit, but is actually there because she has no money, no job and nowhere else to go. She is a former high-school English teacher who lost her job because of an underage relationship with one of her students. She is the play’s tragic heroine whose weakness, coupled with the failure of others to understand her, leads to her breakdown, downward spiral into insanity and eventual committal to an institution.
Stella DuBois/ Kowalski
Stella is Blanche’s younger sister and a member of the once-wealthy and upper-class DuBois family of Belle Reve. She now is married to working-class factory part sales man, Stanley, and is said to find his rough, dominant manner attractive.
Mitch
Mitch (Harold Mitchell) is Stanley’s friend and workmate at the factory - they were in the same regiment in the war together. At first, he is fascinated by Blanche and wants to marry her, however, he cannot face the truth about her past and abandons her.
Stanley Kowalski
Stanley is of Polish descent, although born in the USA and proud of it. “What I am is a one hundred percent American, born and raised in the greatest country on Earth and proud as hell of it, so don’t ever call me a Polak” - (Scene Eight). He could be seen as the play’s antagonist, responsible for bringing about Blanche’s downfall. As well as having being an army engineer in WW2, serving as a master Sergeant, Stanley’s current job is a factory part sales man. Despite this working-class job, Stanley likes to think he is knowledgeable - “In the state of Louisiana we have the Napoleonic Code according to which what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband and vice versa.” Stanley is married to Blanche’s sister Stella, and resents any suggestion that he is her social inferior.
Steve Hubbel
Steve and Eunice own the apartment that Stanley and Stella live in, however, throughout the play we learn less about Steve than we do Eunice. Steve’s main role is to be one of Stanley’s friends at the poker party. However, he does seem more sympathetic towards women than Stanley is, telling him, “Aw, let the girls have their music” (Scene Three), when Stanley complains about the radio. He also protests at Blanche being taken to the mental hospital without being told what is happening.
Eunice Hubbel
Is married to Steve and owns the apartment that Stanley and Stella live in. In the opening scene of the play, Eunice is sitting and chatting with the ‘Negro Woman.’ Eunice is friendly and well-mannering, sharing a joke and asking Blanche “What’s the matter, honey? Are you lost?” (Scene One). She is kind to Blanche, letting her in to the Kowalski apartment, and trying to make conversation with her. Even when Blanche offends her by asking to be left alone, she still goes to find Stella. Her kindness is shown again in the final scene when she brings Blanche a present of grapes - and is once again rebuffed. Eunice is more assertive than Stella. She gives Stella refuge after Stanley’s violence at the end of the poker party and stands up to Stanley on Stella’s behalf - “You can’t beat a woman and then call ‘er back!” (Scene 3).
Alan Grey
Is Blanche’s deceased husband from Belle Reve. Alan commit suicide and shot himself in the mouth after Blanche, his wife at the time, discovered he was having an affair with a another man. Alan was then exposed as a homosexual and it is thought that this shame lead him to his tragic suicide. Blanche often feels guilt from this experience, and it is mentioned continually in the stage directions that Blanche keeps hearing the same polka song that was playing the night Alan died, getting louder and louder until she hears “the gunshot.” This emphasises her downward spiral into insanity as well as giving an explanation to the audience as to what may have triggered her escalating mental health problems.
