Scene 11

Question 1

dramatic function of scene 11

Answer 1

a downbeat conclusion after the melodrama of the rape in scene 10. there is a maintained subdued mood.

Question 2

“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers”

Answer 2

• direct and most effective appeal for the audience’s sympathy and pity
• poignant truth is emphasised: there has been very little kindness in Blanche’s life.

Question 3

the opposite of hubris

Answer 3

Blanche’s vanities and moral weaknesses fall away from her in this moment of departure. she achieves the dignity of a true tragic heroine. The effect is to diminish the others in the drama, and to put them to shame: the sobbing, guilt-stricken Stella; the blustering, bullying Stanley; the weak and ineffectual Mitch.

Question 4

“Della Robia blue”

Answer 4

the effect of the trivia of Blanche’s wardrobe is to heighten dramatic tension.

Question 5

Stanley’s sexual soothing of Stella

Answer 5

Stella has traded her sister for sexual gratification, and the bargain is now completed. Emphasises the brutality of the New order.

Question 6

“I shall die of eating an unwashed grape one day out on the ocean”

Answer 6

reveals Blanche’s fastidious nature - she is worried about cleanliness, perhaps more so considering that the grapes are a gift from the working-class Eunice.

The death she fantasises about is clean, fast, almost luxurious compared to the deaths she described witnessing at Belle Reve with disease and blood.

Question 7

The audience and Blanche

Answer 7

The audience are ignorant of the meaning of the scene at first, like Blanche herself.