Scene 1 Quotations

Question 1

STELLA (STAGE DIRECTIONS)

Answer 1

A gentle woman about twenty-five, and of the background obviously quite different from her husbands.’

Question 2

STANLEY (STAGE DIRECTIONS)

Answer 2

‘He heaves a package at her. She cries out in protest but manages to catch it.’

Question 3

BLANCHE (STAGE DIRECTIONS/SHOCK)

Answer 3

‘Her expression is one of a shocked disbelief’

Question 4

BLANCHE (STAGE DIRECTIONS)

Answer 4

‘Her appearance is incongruous to the setting.’

Question 5

BLANCHE (STAGE DIRECTIONS/ APPERANCE)

Answer 5

‘She is daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and ear- rings of pearl, white gloves and hat, looking as if she was arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party.’

Question 6

BLANCHE (STAGE DIRECTIONS/ LIGHT)

Answer 6

‘Her delicate beauty must avoid strong light.’

Question 7

BLANCHE (STAGE DIRECTIONS/ MOTH)

Answer 7

‘There is something about her uncertain manner, as well as her white clothes that suggests a moth.’

Question 8

BLANCHE (STAGE DIRECTIONS/DRINK)

Answer 8

‘She springs up and crosses to it, and removes a whiskey bottle. She pours a half tumbler of whiskey and tosses it down.’

Question 9

BLANCHE (ILLUSION)

Answer 9

‘But don’t you look at me, Stella, no, no, no not till later, not till I’ve bathed and rested.’

Question 10

BLANCHE (LIGHT)

Answer 10

‘Turn that off! I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare!’

Question 11

BLANCHE (CRUELTY)

Answer 11

‘I thought you would never come back to this horrible place!’

Question 12

BLANCHE (ALCOHOL)

Answer 12

‘I know you must have some liquor on the place! Where could it be, I wonder? Oh, I spy, I spy!

Question 13

BLANCHE (ALCOHOL)

Answer 13

‘Now, don’t get worried, your sister hasn’t turned into a drunkard, she’s just all shaken up and hot and tired.’

Question 14

BLANCHE (CRUELTY)

Answer 14

‘What are you doing in a place like this?’

Question 15

BLANCHE (CRUELTY)

Answer 15

‘Why, that you had to live in these conditions.’

Question 16

BLANCHE (FANTASY/ILLUSION)

Answer 16

‘I was so exhausted by all I’d been through my nerves broke. I was on the verge of -lunacy.. so he suggested I take a leave of absence.’

Question 17

BLANCHE (ALCOHOL)

Answer 17

‘No, one’s my limit.’

Question 18

BLANCHE (FLATTERY)

Answer 18

‘You haven’t said a word about my appearance.’

Question 19

BLANCHE (LIGHT)

Answer 19

‘Daylight never exposed so total a ruin!’

Question 20

BLANCHE (CRUELTY)

Answer 20

But you -you’ve put on some weight, yes you’re just as plump as little partridge!’

Question 21

BLANCHE (FLATTERY)

Answer 21

‘I want you to look at my figure! You know I haven’t out on one ounce in ten years, Stella?’

Question 22

BLANCHE (DEROGATORY)

Answer 22

‘Polacks?’

Question 23

BLANCHE (LONELINESS)

Answer 23

‘I want to be near you, got to be with somebody, I can’t be alone! Because - as you might have noticed - I’m not very well…’

Question 24

STELLA (STANLEY CLASS COMPARISON)

Answer 24

‘You’ll get along just fine together, if you’ll try not to - well - compare him with men that we went out with at home.’

Question 25

STELLA (STANLEY)

Answer 25

‘Yes. A different species.’

Question 26

STELLA (STANLEY’S DIFFERENCES)

Answer 26

'’But of course there were things to adjust myself to later on.’

Question 27

STELLA (DEPENDANCE ON STANLEY)

Answer 27

‘I can hardly stand it when he is away for a night…when he’s away for a week I nearly go wild!…and when he comes back I cry on his lap like a baby.’

Question 28

BLANCHE (HER STRUGGLE AT BELLE REVE)

Answer 28

‘I stayed and struggled! You came to New Orleans and looked out for yourself! I stayed at Belle Reve and tried to hold it together.’

Question 29

BLANCHE (BELLE REVE)

Answer 29

‘You were the one that abandoned Belle Reve, not I! I stayed and fought for it, bled for it, almost dies for it!’

Question 30

BLANCHE (THE LOSS OF BELLE REVE)

Answer 30

“The loss - the loss”

Question 31

BLANCHE (DEATHS AT BELLE REVE)

Answer 31

“I, I, I took the blows in my face! All of those deaths! The long parade to the grave yard!”

Question 32

BLANCHE (FUNERALS AT BELLE REVE)

Answer 32

“Funerals are pretty compared to deaths. Funerals are quiet but deaths - not always.”

Question 33

BLANCHE (GRIM REAPER)

Answer 33

“Why, the grim reaper had put up his tent on our doorstep… Stella.” “Belle Reve was his headquarters!”.

Question 34

BLANCHE (RESENTMENT TOWARDS STELLA)

Answer 34

“Yes, accuse me? Sit there and stare at me, thinking I let the place go! Where were you? in bed with your Polak.”

Question 35

STANLEY (STAGE DIRECTIONS)

Answer 35

Stanley throws the screen door open of the kitchen open and comes in.

Question 36

STANLEY (RELATIONSHIP WITH WOMEN)

Answer 36

The power and pride of a richly feathered male bird among hens…. That bares his emblem of the gawdy sea bearer.

Question 37

STANLEY (LIQUOR)

Answer 37

“Liquor goes fast in hot weather”.

Question 38

STANLEY (ON BLANCHES DRINKING HABITS)

Answer 38

Some people rarely touch it but it touches them often.

Question 39

STANLEY (INFORMAL LANGUAGE)

Answer 39

“You going to shack up here?”

Question 40

BLANCHE (POLKA)

Answer 40

The music of the polka rises up, faint in the distance.