Streetcar Heroines Quotes

Question 1

Williams and Webster both portray their heroines as alienated and ultimately imprisoned within a patriarchal society.

• Blanche is marked as alienated by her costume on arrival in Elysian Fields, wearing white she is described by Williams as ‘incongruous to this setting’
• shocked by sister’s transformation from a woman of Southern aristocratic heritage into a working-class wife who has adopted her husband’s identity and values
• Stella is marked as her husbands possession

Answer 1

‘I’m looking for my sister, Stella DuBois, I mean - Mrs Stanley Kowalski.’ (Blanche, I)

Question 2

Williams and Webster both portray their heroines as alienated and ultimately imprisoned within a patriarchal society.

• In traditional Southern society, male relatives were expected to provide for female family members, but Blanche’s family has failed her in this regard
• They squandered the family’s wealth, leaving nothing behind for the women
• Blanche’s frustration with a patriarchal structure that places women in a position of economic dependence

Answer 2

‘Honey, that’s how it slipped through my fingers Which of them left us a fortune? Which of them left a cent of insurance even?’ (Blanche; I)

Question 3

Williams and Webster both portray their heroines as alienated and ultimately imprisoned within a patriarchal society.

• Blanche flirts with Stanley to diffuse the situation
• she is unashamed of using her sexuality to gain agency suggesting that she does it often
• in a patriarchal society this might seem to be the only way women can gain control

Answer 3

‘We thrashed it out. I feel a bit shaky, but I think I handled it nicely, I laughed and treated it all as a joke. I called him a little boy and laughed and flirted. Yes, I was flirting with your husband!’ (pg 25)

Question 4

Both heroines however are depicted as gaining agency of some kind through their sexuality.

• Symbolism of the streetcar named Desire being linked in Blanche’s first line of dialogue in the play with ‘Cemeteries’; her desire is her undoing”
• While her flirting might gain her some control, it can lead her down a destructive path

Answer 4

They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries. (Blanche, I)

Question 5

Both heroines however are depicted as gaining agency of some kind through their sexuality.

• Blanche flirts with Stanley to diffuse the situation
• she is unashamed of using her sexuality to gain agency suggesting that she does it often
• in a patriarchal society this might seem to be the only way women can gain control

Answer 5

‘We thrashed it out. I feel a bit shaky, but I think I handled it nicely, I laughed and treated it all as a joke. I called him a little boy and laughed and flirted. Yes, I was flirting with your husband! (Blanche pg 25)

Question 6

Both heroines however are depicted as gaining agency of some kind through their sexuality.

• Her sister’s embracing of her sexuality and sexual relationship with her husband is at odds with Blanche’s need to constantly bathe and avoid the light arguably as a way to forget the shame she feels at her promiscuous past. Stella is unapologetically sexual and honest here.

Answer 6

‘They come together with low, animal moans’

Question 7

Unlike Webster, who largely presents the Duchess as a defiant and noble person of high status, Williams presents Blanche as a psychologically damaged, emotionally fragile, socially liminal and culturally dispossessed woman.

• [The music of polka rises up, faint in the distance.] (Stanley + SDirections)
  The leitmotif of the Varsouviana only Blanche can hear linked with the trauma of Allen Gray’s suicide and first mention of polka in play is with Stanley, hinting his link to her final trauma at end of play.

Answer 7

‘You were married once weren’t you?

Question 8

Unlike Webster, who largely presents the Duchess as a defiant and noble person of high status, Williams presents Blanche as a psychologically damaged, emotionally fragile, socially liminal and culturally dispossessed woman.

• The audience finds this comedic as it’s an understatement to say she ‘fibs’. She is presented as dishonest which makes her character complex and irritating at points for the audience.

Answer 8

“‘I know I fib a good deal… but when a thing is important, I tell the truth”
(Blanche, II)