Stanley Flashcards
Stanley’s first lines to Stella + stage direction
‘Hey there! Stella, baby’
‘Bellowing’
First description of Stanley’s appearance (stage directions)
‘Bowling jacket’
‘Red-stained work clothes’
How is Stanley described by Stella at the start when talking to Blanche?
‘A different species’
How a Stanley looks at women quote
‘Sizes women up with a glance’
‘Crude images flashing into his mind’
Stanley altering his persona depending on who he is around
‘Crude images flash into his mind’
Which
‘Determine the way he smiles at them [women]’
Stanley asserting dominance in the apartment after Blanche has arrived
He asks her ‘do you mind if I remove my shirt’ and before she replies he ‘starts to remove his shirt’
Showing his ‘strongly and compactly built’ figure, asserting physical strength as well as dominance
Stanley describing Blanche and Stella
Doing ‘monkey doing’s’
By marrying Stella….
By marrying Stella, a women with a background ‘obviously quite different from her husbands’, Stanley transcende boundaries and represent the new classless southern society.
Animalistic descriptions
‘Animal joy’
‘Stalks into the bedroom’ - stage direction
‘Animal thing’
‘Charges at Stella’
‘Animal force’
‘Something downright bestial about him’ (Blanche says)
‘Trots’
‘Spear his fork into the remaining chop’ which he ‘eats with his fingers’ (violent, primitive, manifestation of anger at Blanche at her birthday party)
Stanley physical description
‘Strongly compactly built’
Stanley lust
‘Pleasure with women’ is the ‘centre of his life’
‘Sizes women up with a glance’
Stanley threatened by Blanche
‘I don’t care if she hears me’
‘Swindled’ (repetition)
‘Napoleonic code - ‘what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband’
‘I don’t like to be swindled’
Stanley aggressive
‘Hurls the first to the daybed’
‘With heaven splitting violence’
Derogatory towards women
His insults ‘shut her (a woman) up like a clam) - derogatory, misogynistic, shocking to a modern audience
Manipulative
To find out the truth about Belle Rêve he plays with Blanche’s emotions:
‘Especially now she’s going to have a baby’ - emotional leverage, hoping this will make her crack
Stanley outside hearing Blanche’s hyperbolic monologue
‘Stands unseen’
‘Under cover of the train noise’
Stanley reaction to hearing Blanche’s monologue
Makes out he doesn’t know (deceit)
‘Grins at her’
‘’Grins through the curtains at Blanche’
Stanley on Blanche’s lying
She’s been ‘feeding us a pack of lies’
Stanley found out about Blanche’s past quote
‘Found out some things’
Stage directions when Stanley says to Stella he has ‘found out some things’ about Blanche
‘Blanche is singing in the bathroom’
A ‘ballad used contrapuntally with Stanley’s speech’
Singing ‘blithely’
Analysis:
Blanche present and oblivious whilst he tells Stella her lies makes the moment more poignant - she’s so unaware - indicative of her mental state losing touch with reality - too caught in fantasy world to know what’s going on in the real world
Stanley revelling in fact he is one up from Blanche and knows about her past
‘It’s not my souls I’m worried about’
‘Laughs harshly’
Reaction to Stella insulting his eating
‘Hurls the plate’
‘Seizes her arm’
‘Every man is a king around here’
Patriotic
‘I am 100% American, born and raised in the greatest country on Earth’
How does Stanley react when Stella tells him off for giving Blanche the ticket
‘Stalks into the bedroom’
‘Rips of shirt’ to reinforce physical strength and masculinity
Stanley’s description of Blanche after he gives her the bus ticket
‘Delicate piece she is’
Modern audience reaction to Stanley giving Blanche bus ticket
Struck by his lack of sensitivity
Stage directions leading up to rape scene
Lurid
Jungle
Telephone
Lurid reflections
Night filled with inhumane voices like cries in the jungle
clicking becomes audible from the telephone - cyclical - links to ‘tapping on shutters’ of prostitute at beginning of play
Blue piano just before Stanley rapes Blanche
‘Drums louder’
Why does Williams make Stanley talk about luck in last scene ?
Stanley talking about himself as ‘lucky’ used as device to contrast against Blanche who has run out of all luck
