SCND

Question 1

‘I have always depended on the kindness of strangers’
(Scene 11)

Answer 1

• Ironic, Blanche misunderstands the nature of the ‘rescue’.
• Far from assisting out of chivalric politeness, the doctor is the last in a long line of ‘strangers’ to note Blanche’s ever-decreasing grasp of reality.
• The euphemistic ‘strangers’ provokes thoughts of the many
  ‘kind’ men who have in reality merely shown affection towards Blanche for sex. Her dependence in this regard is tied to her sexual availability.

Question 2

‘I can hardly stand it when he is away for a night… when he’s away for a week I nearly go wild!’ (Scene 10)

Answer 2

• The intensity of Stella’s feelings for Stanley - established in the opening scene’s greeting ‘Hey there! Stella, Baby!’ - are revealed through this passionate, some might say mad, expression of desire.

• Blinded by a marriage successfully built on sex, Stella cannot accept the reality of her husband’s brutalisation of her sister.

Question 3

‘I don’t want realism. I want magic!’ (Scene 9)

Answer 3

• Driven by a desire for a world of fantasy and artifice, Blanche does all she can to evade the harsh glare of reality.
• Yet Blanche is unable to shed her actual persona. Given her past ‘intimacies with strangers’, no amount of mythmaking can persuade the increasingly Stanley-like Mitch to share her
  delusions.

Question 4

‘Since earliest manhood the centre of his life has been pleasure with women…not with weak indulgence, dependently, but with the power and pride of a richly feathered male bird among hens’ (Scene 1)

Answer 4

• Stanley is depicted as a peacock-like creature, ostentatious and bursting with testosterone, keen to consume and dominate the women he meets.
• The alliterative plosives ‘power’ and ‘pride’ form a toxic combination, foreshadowing the consequences of arrogance and excessive lust.

Question 5

‘This game is seven-card stud’ (Scene 11)

Answer 5

• The final line is anticlimactic but conveys an ominous mood, which leaves the audience feeling concerned for Stella.
• The choice of ‘stud’ symbolises how Stanley’s predatorial sexual desire appears undiminished.
• Masculine dominance, framed through the microcosm of poker, remains resolutely intact. Blanche’s yearning for a world of
  ‘magic’ has gone, replaced by hard, cold reality.