Scene Eight Flashcards
The industrial landscape in the stage directions
Hope is fading for Blanche.
‘the view through the big windows is fading gradually’
Stanley “hurls a plate to the floor”
Violent outburst, Stanley feels threatened by a female assertion.
Stanley- ‘Remember what Huey Long said- Every Man is a King’
The idea of the ‘New American’ man.
Huey Long represented the working class.
Marxist perspective- economic struggles.
He ‘seizes her arm’- indicates the inescapability of the patriarchy.
Asserts USA as the ‘greatest country on Earth’
Blanche- ‘like two blue candles lighted in a white cake’
Escapism through candles.
Break the generational toxic cycle of the man.
SD- ‘the Varsouviana music steals in softly and continues playing… Stella.. turns her back’
Use of aural devices, conflict between husband/sister.
Stella- “But people like you abused her, forced her to change”
Patriarchal/ industrial society.
Tragic, powerless.
Bubb ‘tragedy of the powerless’
Stella- ‘she catches hold of his shirt’
Stanley ‘You’ve torn it’
Powerful, Stella asserts herself.
AO4: Duchess wittiness.
Fragile masculinity in the face of female assertion
Stanley- ‘I pulled you down off them columns and you loved it”
Positional language indicates social Darwinism.
Violent metaphor of ‘pulled’
‘columns’ connote to status.
AO4: Bosola feeds the Duchess apricots, the argument with Stanley induces labour, lack of bodily autonomy.
