Scene One

Question 1

New Orleans

Answer 1

Interracial, diverse society. Blanche struggles to adapt. Former French colony with an embedded French identity.

Question 2

Elysian Fields and L and N tracks

Answer 2

Greek mythology- a resting place for soldiers.
Post WW2- loss of soldiers’ life, reduced to poverty.
Railways- working class, movement, industry.

Question 3

‘Mostly white frame, weathered grey’

Answer 3

Decay, the failure of the American dream.

Question 4

‘Bananas and coffee’

Answer 4

Slavery embedded into society, claustrophobic community.
Gritty reality of casual racism in society.

Question 5

‘Always around the corner’

Answer 5

Instability and inevitability.

Question 6

‘Above the music of the blue piano’

Answer 6

Fragmente, socialism realism feeling.
Musical motif, shapes the soundscape of the town.
Chaotic, busy dynamic with overlapping dialogue; drinking, music, freedom.

Question 7

Stanley and mitches ‘blue denim work clothes’ and the ‘red-stained package from a butchers’

Answer 7

Symbolise working class men, Kowalski means ‘blacksmith/ commoner. Denim was invented for work.
Heteronormative bread- winner, Stone Age, gender roles.
Male dominated gambling.

Question 8

‘And of a background obviously quite different from her husbands’

Answer 8

She has socially adapted, she is malleable.
Social Darwinism, Blanche and Stanley don’t adapt.

Question 9

‘Get him a poor boy’s sandwich cause nothings left here’

Answer 9

Reversal of stereotypes, exploration of 2 different marriage dynamics.

Question 10

About Blanche ‘her expression is one of shock and belief’. ‘Her appearance is incongruous to this setting’

Answer 10

Lack/ inability to adapt to her surroundings.
Blanche is an anomalie to the area, symbolism of white as pure which depicts her mental state before her decline.

Question 11

Blanche as a ‘moth’

Answer 11

Fragile, self- destructive as moths fly to a flame (forebodes Blanche’s storyline), facade, negative in comparison to a butterfly, attracted to light despite Blanche’s ironic aversion to light.

Question 12

Stage directions: faintly hysterical humour.

Answer 12

Hyperbolic/ oxymoronic. Connotations of ‘hysterical’ as lunatic.

Question 13

Blanche “Cemeteries” “Elysian fields”

Answer 13

Cemeteries reflects her social death as she descends to a lower class, Blanche’s literal journey is symbolic of her mental journey.
Symbolic narrative.

Question 14

Blanche “Stella DuBois… I mean- Mrs Stanley Kowalski”

Answer 14

Social etiquette.
Loss of stella’s identity, ‘Kowalski’ translates to common man, DuBois means woods. Social Darwinism depicted through the names.

Question 15

Stage directions, “The surrounding areas dim out as the interior is lighted”

Answer 15

Architectural insecurity, the place closes in, depicted through the imagery. Creates a semantic field of suffocation, claustrophobia. The “dim” suggests she is shielded from the outside world. “Lighted”, light introduced as a motif.

Question 16

Blanche- “Belle Reve?”

Answer 16

Gives exposition of Blanche’s life in the old South, Privileged slave owners through inherited wealth. The failure of belle reve symbolises the dissipation of the American dream.

Question 17

Blanches’s characterisation in the stage directions- “the blind look” “a cat screeches”

Answer 17

Refusal to recognise Stella’s descent to the lower classes, “blind” she is shielded from everything out of her own private world.
The cat is an expression of her mental state, reinforces her constant alertness and insecurity.

Question 18

Blanche’s stage direction “a wild cry”

Answer 18

First indication of the environment impinging on her person, class descent. “wild” has connotations to something feral, uncivilised, animalistic. Loss of her etiquette.

Question 19

Blanche “Turn that off! I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare”

Answer 19

Appearance and vanity, light motif. “merciless” personifies the light as reckless, ruthless, no humanity.
Imperatives depict her as a dominant personality- immediate character clash with Stanley.

Question 20

Blanche “Precious lamb”

Answer 20

Infantilising language, the innocent symbolism of the lamb, “lamb to the slaughter.”

Question 21

Stage directions “She is shaking all over and panting or her breath as she tries to laugh”

Answer 21

Depicted as feral, unhinged, earlier signs of her mental departure.

Question 22

Stella “You sit down and let me pour the drinks”

Answer 22

Confirms Stella’s class descent as she becomes the help in the upper class servant dynamic rather than the one being served.

Question 23

Blanche “Only Poe” Only Mr Edgar Allan Poe!” “ghoul-haunted woodland”

Answer 23

Literary reference- Gothic writer, intertextual reference to The Tell-Tale Heart. The character is driven to insanity through the heartbeat like Blanche is driven to sanity through the sound of the Piano. Classism.
“ghoul”- the people who inhabit Elysian Fields are socially dead in Blanche’s eyes, classist interpretation.

Question 24

Blanche “I weigh what I weighed the summer you left Bell Reve.”

Answer 24

Stuck in stasis whilst everything else as moved on; socially delayed, isolated.

Question 25

Blanche- “highbrow”

Answer 25

Casual racism towards Stanley.

Question 26

Blanche- “Polacks” “Heterogeneous”

Answer 26

Uses racist term like its second nature, casual derogatory. Eugenic language. Trying to justify racism through scientific reluctance.

Question 27

Stella refers to Stanley as “a different species”

Answer 27

Gentle avoidance, detachment of Stanley from Blanche and Stella- classism despite Stella’s social Darwinism.

Question 28

Stella talking about when Stanley goes to work “I nearly go wild.”

Answer 28

Stella’s utter infatuation with Stanley, “wild” shows the social Darwinism as she too refers to herself with animalistic connotations.

Question 29

Blanche “I stayed and fought for it, bled for it, almost died for it.”

Answer 29

Battle-like semantic field, ignorance to who really fought for the upkeep of Belle Reve.
Demonstrates how intertwined the Old South is with Blanche’s character.

Question 30

Blanche’s expressionist monologue.
“I,I,I took the blows in my face and my body.”
“Why, the Grim Reaper had put up his tent on our doorstep!… Stella. Belle Reve was headquarters.”

Answer 30

Highly poetic quality depicted through the metaphor, doesn’t feel realistic.
All dramatic deal, semantic field of fight and battle.
Broken syntax, indicates Blanche’s fragile well-being.

Question 31

Steve: “Playing poker, tomorrow night?”

Answer 31

Gambling metaphor, poker is a game where you have to lie. Stanley vs Blanche.

Question 32

Eunice- “I made the spaghetti dish and ate it myself.”

Answer 32

Demonstrates the homosocial setting, the men have autonomy were as the women are simply reduced to the domestic sphere.

Question 33

Stanley’s “Animal joy in his being implicit in all his movements and attitudes.

Answer 33

Characterisation of him as primitive, frantic, motivated by desire.
Exploration of male vs female desire.
AO5 Williams: Stanley and Blanche are “two sides of the same character.”
Stanley represents the modernity of the American man and Blanche represents the Old South.

Question 34

Stanley as a ‘gaudy seed-bearer’

Answer 34

Reinforces the social mobility of men and the social restrictions imposed on women, a metaphor for affair.