Scene Four

Question 1

Stage Directions: [Stella is lying down in the bedroom. her face is……..

Answer 1

……………..serene in the early morning sunlight. One hand rests on her belly, rounding slightly with new maternity.] - Stella doesn’t hide away from the light like Blanche does / Buddah like imagery.

Question 2

Stage Directions: [Her eyes and lips have that almost………….

Answer 2

…………narcotized tranquillity that is in the face of Eastern idols.] - narcotized means on drugs / her drug is Stanley.

Question 3

Blanche: “You’re married to a madman!”
Stella: “No!”
Blanche: “Yes, you are……………

Answer 3

………….your fix is worse than mine is.”

Question 4

Stella: “But there are things that happen between a man and……….

Answer 4

……..a woman in the dark - that sort of make everything else seem - unimportant.”

Question 5

Stella: “Haven’t you ever……….

Answer 5

……..ridden on that Streetcar?”
Blanche: “It bought me here.”
- Here Stella is questioning Blanche by asking, haven’t you ever felt desire? Her answer is ambiguous. On one hand she could mean that her feelings of desire bought her to Stella’s house, in that way she could have felt desire before, or, she could be responding literally to the statement by saying that she rode the streetcar, called desire, to get to Stella’s house.

Question 6

Blanche: “Well - if you’ll forgive me…………..

Answer 6

………..he’s common!”

Question 7

Blanche: “He acts like an animal, has an animal’s habits!……..

Answer 7

………..Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one!”

Question 8

Blanche: “There’s even something sub…………

Answer 8

………human - something not quite to the stage of humanity yet!”

Question 9

Blanche: “Thousands and thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is…………

Answer 9

………Stanley Kowlaski - survivor of the Stone Age!”

Question 10

Blanche: “Bearing the raw……….

Answer 10

………meat home from the kill in the jungle! And you - you here - waiting for him!”

Question 11

Blanche: “His poker night! - you………..

Answer 11

…………call it - this party of apes! Somebody growls - some creature snatches at something - the fight is on!”

Question 12

Stage Directions: [Stanley hesitates………..

Answer 12

………licking his lips.]

Question 13

Stanley: “Hiyah Blanche. [He…….

Answer 13

…….grins at her.]

Question 14

Blanche: “God! Maybe we are a long way away from being in………

Answer 14

………God’s image, but Stella - my sister - there has been some progress since then! Such things as art - as poetry and music - such kinds of new light have come into the world since then!”

Question 15

Blanche: “Night falls and the other apes……..

Answer 15

……….gather! There in front of the cave, all grunting like him, and swilling and gnawing and hulking!”

Question 16

Blanche: “What you are talking about is brutal………

Answer 16

…….desire - just - Desire! - the name of that rattle-tap streetcar that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another…”

Question 17

Blanche: “You can’t have forgotten that much of our…………..

Answer 17

………….bringing up, Stella, that you just suppose that any part of a gentle-man’s in his nature! Not one particle, no!”

Question 18

Blanche: “There’s something downright………

Answer 18

………bestial - about him!”

Question 19

Blanche: “Baby, my………

Answer 19

……..baby sister!”

Question 20

Blanche: “Why! I’ve been half crazy, Stella! When I found out you’d been………….

Answer 20

……..insane enough to come back here after what happened - I started to rush in after you!”
Stella: “I’m glad you didn’t.”

Question 21

Blanche: “How could you come back in this place…………..

Answer 21

………last night? Why, you must have slept with him!”

Question 22

Stella: “In the first place, when men are drinking and playing………..

Answer 22

………….poker anything can happen. It’s always a powder-keg.” - suggests something’s always about to explode.

Question 23

Stella: “He didn’t know what he was doing….. He was as good as a lamb when………

Answer 23

……..I came back and he’s really very, very ashamed of himself.”

Question 24

Stella: “He smashed all the light bulbs………

Answer 24

…….with the heel of my slipper!” [She laughs.]

Blanche: “And you - you let him? Didn’t run, didn’t scream?”

Question 25

Stella: “No, it isn’t all right for anybody to make such a terrible row, but………..

Answer 25

………….people do sometimes.”

Question 26

Stella: “Stanley’s always………

Answer 26

……….smashed things.”

Question 27

Stella: “Why, on our wedding night - soon as we came in here………….

Answer 27

……….he snatched off one of my slippers and rushed about the place smashing light bulbs with it.”

Question 28

Stella: “I was - sort of………..

Answer 28

……..thrilled by it.”

Question 29

Blanche: “But you’ve given in………….

Answer 29

……….And that isn’t right, you’re not old! You can get out.”

Stella: [slowly and emphatically] “I’m not in anything I want to get out of.”

Question 30

Stella: “I said I’m not in anything I have a……..

Answer 30

……..desire to get out of.”

Question 31

Stella: “He promised this morning that he was going to quit having these poker…………..

Answer 31

…………parties, but you know how long such a promise is going to keep.”

Question 32

Stella: “Oh, well, it’s his………..

Answer 32

………..pleasure, like mine is movies and bridge. People have got to tolerate each other’s habits, I guess.”

Question 33

Blanche: “I don’t understand you. I don’t understand your indifference. Is this a……….

Answer 33

………Chinese philosophy you’ve cultivated?”

Question 34

Blanche: “Listen to me. I have an idea of some kind. Do you remember………..

Answer 34

………….Shep Huntleigh? Of course you remember Shep Huntleigh. I went out with him at college and wore his pin for a while.”

Question 35

Blanche (when talking about Shep Huntleigh): “He has them, all over Texas. Texas is literally……….

Answer 35

……..spouting gold in his pockets.”

Question 36

Blanche (when talking about Shep Huntleigh): “Honey, would I be here……….

Answer 36

…………if the man weren’t married?”

Question 37

Blanche: “How do I get to Western Union? Operator…………….

Answer 37

Western Union!”

Stella: “That’s a dial phone, honey.”

Question 38

Blanche: “Let me see now…… [She bites the pencil.]

“Darling Shep. Sister and I in………..

Answer 38

……….desperate situation.”
Stella: “I beg your pardon!”
Blanche: “Sister and I in desperate situation. Will explain details later. Would you be interested in -?” [She bites the pencil again.] “Would - you be - interested - in….” [She smashes the pencil on the table and springs up.] “You never get anywhere with direct appeals!”

Question 39

Stella: “Don’t be so ridiculous, darling!”
Blanche: “But I’ll think of something, I’ve got to think of……….

Answer 39

…………..some-thing! Don’t, don’t laugh at me, Stella! Please, please don’t - I - I want you to look at the contents of my purse!”

Question 40

Stella: “Blanche, you saw him at his worst last night.”………….

Answer 40

………….Blanche: “On the contrary, I saw him at his best!”

Question 41

Blanche: “What such a man has to offer is animal force and he gave a………..

Answer 41

…………wonderful exhibition of that!”

Question 42

Blanche: “But the only way to live with such a man is to……….

Answer 42

………….go to bed with him! And that’s your job - not mine!”

Question 43

Blanche: “I take it for granted that you still have sufficient memory of Belle Reve to find……………

Answer 43

………….this place and these poker players impossible to live with.”

Question 44

Stage Directions: [As the light fades away, with a lingering brightness on their embrace, the music of the…………

Answer 44

…………..’blue piano’ and trumpet and drums is heard.] - three different thought processes going on; Stanley knows he’s won as he will always have Stella’s loyalty and is therefore enjoying watching Blanche’s discomfort - he clasps his teeth together and licks his lips as if Blanche is his prey.