Romantic relationships and their evolution through the plays Flashcards
Blanche and Mitch’s faux comedic ending (3)
‘You need somebody. And I need somebody, too. Could it be - you and me, Blanche?’
‘He kisses her forehead and her eyes and finally her lips’ - chivalric, sensitive, unconditional love
‘Sometimes - there’s God - so quickly!’
Blanche opening up about her tragic past to Mitch (1)
After Allan’s suicide… ‘never for one moment since has there been any light stronger than this - kitchen-candle…’
Either shows progression in their relationship (more honest, more intimate) or undermines the comedic ‘ending’ with a sense of Blanche’s desperation (ie, not true love)
Blanche and Mitch’s incompatibility/awkwardness on their date
‘I want you to have a drink! You have been so anxious and solemn all evening.’
In response to his weight: ‘Oh, my goodness, me! It’s awe-inspiring.’ - hyperbolic, obviously artificial
The Duchess and Antonio’s wholesome relationship - proposal scene
‘Bless, heaven this sacred Gordian, which let violence / Never untwine’
The Gordian knot famously couldn’t be untied until Alexander the Great cut through it with his sword - wholesome comedic moment is undermined by the foreshadowing of Ferdinand’s violence
The Duchess and Antonio’s wholesome relationship - singing scene
‘For she’s the sprawlingest bed-fellow’ - Cariola
‘I shall like her the better for that’ - Antonio
The Duchess kisses Antonio, he says ‘I must have another’ and kisses her back (equal, balanced love and sexual desire
The modal verb ‘must’ shows a necessity underpinned by passion rather than practicality/vulnerability
Moment of foreshadowing in the Duchess’s and Antonio’s relationship
‘Your kiss is colder /Than I have seen an holy anchorite / Give to a dead man’s skull’
The Duchess’s and Antonio’s relationship staying wholesome till the end
The Duchess’s final words are ‘Antonio!’ and then ‘Mercy!’
So… even though their relationship has been thwarted by Ferdinand’s vengeful plot, it remains spiritually/emotionally alive - it is framed here as wholesome, genuine, and Christian
Antonio, in the scene where he is being haunted by an echo of the Duchess’s voice: ‘My Duchess is asleep now, / And her little ones, I hope sweetly. Oh heaven, / Shall I never see her more!’ - Christian language again, pointing to his continued (though naive) love for and loyalty to the Duchess
However, his naivety arguably undermines his heroism - its futile and nothing compared to the Duchess’s courage
Deterioration of Mitch and Blanche’s relationship
Mitch ‘stalks into the bedroom’ and Blanche looks ‘fearfully’
Mitch ‘tears the paper lantern off the light bulb. She utters a frightened gasp’ - destroying her protective illusion after she let him in on the reasoning behind her ‘magic’
He wants ‘what I’ve been missing all summer’
He says ‘you’re not clean enough to bring into the house with my mother’ - particularly hurtful as he now knows the ‘magic’ she tries to create by playing into the southern bells archetype
Ways in which Mitch and Blanche’s wholesome relationship endures through the play
‘I’ll kill you! [he lunges and strikes at Stanley]’ – but then called a ‘bone-headed cry baby’ by Stanley – Mitch recognises Stanley’s immoral behaviour, yet doesn’t fully act on it
