Quotes

Question 1

SCENE ONE, STAGE DIRECTIONS - How does Williams describe Blanche’s appearance?

Answer 1

‘Her appearance is incongruous to this setting.’

Question 2

SCENE ONE, STAGE DIRECTIONS - What is Blanche’s costume?

Answer 2

‘Daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace, and ear-rings of pearl, white gloves and a hat […] as if she were arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party.’

Question 3

SCENE ONE, STAGE DIRECTIONS - How does Williams describe Stanley?

Answer 3

With ‘the power and pride of a richly feathered bird among hens.’

Question 4

SCENE THREE, STAGE DIRECTIONS - How does Blanche engage in pretense?

Answer 4

‘Reading with feigned difficulty’

Question 5

SCENE THREE, STAGE DIRECTIONS - How does Mitch dance with Blanche?

Answer 5

‘moves in awkward imitation like a dancing bear.’

Question 6

SCENE FIVE, MONOLOGUE - Blanche on Youth and Beauty

Answer 6

Blanche: The soft people have got to - shimmer and glow - put a - paper lantern over the light…

Question 7

SCENE FIVE, MONOLOGUE - Blanche on Men

Answer 7

Blanche: Men don’t - don’t even admit your existence unless they are making love to you. And you’ve got to have your existence admitted

Question 8

SCENE FIVE, BLANCHE AND STELLA DIALOGUE - Blanche using Mitch

Answer 8

Blanche: I want to deceive him enough to make him - want me…
Stella: Blanche, do you want him?
Blanche: I want to rest!

Question 9

SCENE SIX, BLANCHE AND MITCH DIALOGUE - Blanche’s escapism with Mitch

Answer 9

Blanche: We are going to pretend that we are sitting in a little artists’ cafe on the Left Bank in Paris! Je suis la Dame aux Camellias! Vous etes - Armand!

Question 10

SCENE SIX, MONOLOGUE - Blanche on her trauma in love from Allan Grey

Answer 10

Blanche: and never for one moment since has there been any light that’s stronger than this - kitchen - candle…

Question 11

SCENE SEVEN, SONG - Blanche singing It’s Only A Paper Moon

Answer 11

Blanche: But it wouldn’t be make believe, if you believed in me.

Question 12

SCENE EIGHT, STANLEY AND BLANCHE DIALOGUE - Stanley on his national identity

Answer 12

Stanley: I am not a Polack. People from Poland are Poles, not Polacks. But what I am is a one hundred per cent American.

Question 13

SCENE EIGHT, STANLEY AND STELLA DIALOGUE - Stanley on Stella’s class

Answer 13

Stanley: I was common as dirt. You showed me the snapshot of the place with the columns. I pulled you down off them columns and how you loved it

Question 14

SCENE NINE, BLANCHE AND MITCH DIALOGUE - Southern Comfort

Answer 14

Blanche: Here’s something. Southern Comfort! What is that I wonder?
Mitch: If you don’t know, it must belong to Stan.

Question 15

SCENE NINE, BLANCHE AND MITCH DIALOGUE (FLORES IN BACKGROUND) - Blanche on her antebellum trauma

Answer 15

Blanche: ‘Yes, mother. But couldn’t we get a coloured girl to do it?’ No, we couldn’t of course. Everything gone but the - Death.

Question 16

SCENE TEN, STAGE DIRECTIONS - Blanche and the Mirror

Answer 16

‘She slams the mirror face down with such violence that the glass cracks.’

Question 17

SCENE TEN, STANLEY AND BLANCHE DIALOGUE - Stanley degrades Blanche

Answer 17

Stanley: Look at yourself in that worn out Mardi Gras outfit, rented for fifty cents from some rag-picker!

Question 18

SCENE TEN, STAGE DIRECTIONS - Predatory shadows

Answer 18

‘Lurid reflections appear on the walls around Blanche. The shadows are of a grotesque and menacing form.’

Question 19

SCENE TEN, STAGE DIRECTIONS - Voices and Sound

Answer 19

‘The night is filled with inhuman voices like cries in a jungle.’

Question 20

SCENE ELEVEN, STAGE DIRECTIONS - Stella’s Betrayal of Blanche

Answer 20

‘Eunice descends to Stella and places the child in her arms’

Question 21

SCENE ELEVEN, BLANCHE AND DOCTOR DIALOGUE - Blanche’s final words.

Answer 21

Blanche: Whoever you are - I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

Question 22

SCENE FIVE, BLANCHE AND YOUNG MAN DIALOGUE - Blanche’s drunken attraction

Answer 22

Blanche: I want to kiss you - just once- softly and sweetly on your mouth.

Question 23

SCENE FIVE, STAGE DIRECTIONS - Blanche kissing the young man

Answer 23

‘Without waiting for him to accept, she crosses quickly to him and presses her lips to his.’

Question 24

SCENE FIVE, BLANCHE AND MITCH DIALOGUE - Blanche’s nickname for Mitch

Answer 24

Blanche: My Rosenkavalier!

Question 25

SCENE NINE, BLANCHE AND MITCH DIALOGUE - Mitch drunkenly attempting to fondle Blanche

Answer 25

Blanche: What do you want?
Mitch: [fumbling to embrace her] What I been missing all summer.
Blanche: Then marry me, Mitch!
Mitch: [dropping his hands from her waist] You’re not clean enough