Scene 9 Flashcards
Describe Mitch’s character and his role throughout the play.
Like his physical description, his character is never fully described by the others. The depiction of his character depends almost entirely on our reactions to his behaviour. Shy, clumsy, slow-thinking, Mitch acts as a foil to the shrewd, loud, domineering Stanley, as well as to the poetry-loving, fanciful Blanche. His role is to offer Blanche a safe haven, and this spurs Stanley indirectly to find out about Blanche’s past in order to protect his old ‘buddy’. Mitch represents the possibility of future happiness or security for Blanche - that hope which makes her ultimate catastrophe all the more poignant.
Mitch’s interest in Blanche encourages Stanley to think of her as sexually desirable. Mitch matters to Stanley: Stanley needs his admiration and respect and is unwilling to relinquish his hold on him.
How is Mitch presented in scene 9 and beyond?
That he is to be seen as Stanley’s shadow is shown in his tearing of the lantern, and in his half-hearted attempt at raping Blanche as both these actions are repeated, successfully, by Stanley later in the play. After Mitch’s actions at the end of Scene 9, Blanche knows that any hope now of establishing a saving relationship with another human being is lost. When Mitch appears in the final scene, he is evidently dogged by shame and an impotent fury. He splutters with incoherent rage against Stanley. When he hears Blanche’s voice, he ducks his head as if to hide from her, and remains hunched over the table, sullen and ashamed, when the others stand to let her pass. He cannot bear to look at her: undignified and cowardly evasion is all that is left to him. He, like Blanche, will have to find some way of trying to escape from the guilt and the sense of personal failure, or he will be finished.
How does Mitch react to the information he has found out from Stanley?
It becomes evident throughout this section that Blanche is increasingly isolated, as Mitch, always a weak character, chooses to believe Stanley’s interpretation of Blanche’s behaviour and is unable to understand her version of events. Indeed, just after this section, Blanche states: ‘Death… the opposite is desire. So do you wonder? How could you possibly wonder?’ But Mitch does wonder and so the audience feels great frustration for his ignorance and pity for her alienation.
How is light and darkness used in this scene?
The use of light and darkness is very symbolic in this passage and contributes to Mitch’s determination to reveal the ‘truth’ about Blanche. He violently rips the paper lantern from the bulb (which he so willingly placed over it earlier on in the play) causing Blanche to cry out and cover her face. For her, light is the enemy, and darkness is kind because it is here that she can maintain her false illusions about herself and her life. Without those illusions, Blanche is quick to lose her sanity. The audience is aware, however, that Blanche, for all her pretense, is suffering and is very fragile and so Mitch’s words and actions, which are so shocking after his earlier, consistent kindness towards her, reinforce the developing tension in their relationship in the passage. It could be argued that the stripping of the light shade is a metaphor for his attempted rape of Blanche at the end of this scene.
How does Blanche react to Mitch’s harsh, violent behaviour as ‘he tears the paper lantern off’?
Once the light is on, Blanche’s language becomes clearer. She makes a series of emphatic declarative statements in which, for once she tells the truth. Her sentences are simple, reinforcing her anger here. She says: ‘I don’t tell the truth. I tell what ought to be the truth.’ The extent of the difference between the two characters is made clear in Mitch’s language choices in the speech beginning ‘I don’t mind you being older . . .’ He uses colloquial, informal language and demeans her by suggesting that her actions are merely ‘malarkey’ that has been ‘dished out’.
When does it become obvious to the audience that Blanche is a victim of men that have cruelly abused and misunderstood her?
Firstly, in scene 8 when Stella refuses to abandon Blanche, she accuses men like Stanley of “abus[ing] her and forc[ing] her to change”.
To Mitch, Blanche is simply deceitful and he seems incapable of understanding why she has behaved in the way she has. Blanche, however, still appears to be quite strong. Her sarcastic tone when she calls Stanley her ‘loving brother-in-law’ indicates her disdain for him and therefore for Mitch, heightening the tension between them. Her reference to a nursery rhyme when she states: ‘rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub!’ belittles the men who have both misunderstood her and mistreated her. This is reinforced by her clarification of this when she comments on the ‘filthy tub’, again using figurative language to indicate her hatred of all that Stanley represents. This creates tension for the audience as we know by now that Mitch has aligned himself with Stanley.
How is Blanche and Mitch’s relationship finally destroyed?
Blanche’s long turn of emotive language (“a cleft in the rock of the world that I could hide in!”) is met by Mitch with a simple, clear declarative (‘you lied to me, Blanche’). The irony here is that she has been painfully truthful, which highlights Mitch’s sudden aggression and brutality towards Blanche leaving her isolated and alone. The repetition of ‘lies’ in this final exchange at the end of this section, undermines her account and causes her to lose any dominance as she trails off when declaring ‘never inside, I didn’t lie in my heart . . . ‘ This line seems to take Blanche in on herself since in the rest of the scene to follow, her language is increasingly fragmented as she loses her grip on reality. So, the passage ends on a note of great tension as any hope that Blanche or the audience had for safety and comfort with Mitch has been destroyed - he’s no longer a symbol of comfort and protection but an echo of Stanley’s behaviour making him an enemy to the audience and Blanche.
