Streetcar - Old South vs New America

Question 1

Blanche - Old South vs Stanley - New America

Answer 1

Blanche represses her desire due to her desperation to fit the Southern Belle stereotype
- “incongruous to the setting”/ “white suit with a fluffy bodice” / “necklace and ear-rings of pearl”
- “innocent” / “delicate”
- “Red hots!” / “red stained package”
- “He smashed all the light bulbs with the heel of my slipper! And you-you let him? Didn’t run, didn’t scream?”
- “bathing” / “soak in a hot tub”
This repression is deceptive however, she attempts to restrict her own desire and maintain a false identity
- “Without waiting for him to accept, she crosses quickly to him and presses her lips to his.” / “Look who’s coming! My Rosenkavalier!”
- “Bow to me first! Now present them.”
- “You should know the line she’s been feeding to Mitch. He thought she had never been more than kissed by a fellow”
- “Well, so much for her being such a refined and particular type of girl.”
- “the flamingo” / “army camp near Laurel” / “a seventeen-year-old boy- she’d gotten mixed up with!”
- “I don’t tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it!–Don’t turn the light on!”
She therefore facilitates her own demise, hiding her true self and positioning herself directly against Stanley, who views it as his mission to maintain the dominance of New American ideologies
- “The first time I laid eyes on him I thought to myself, that man is my executioner! That man will destroy me”
- “The Kowalskis and the DuBois have different notions”
- “I’ve been on to you from the start! Not once did you pull any wool over this boy’s eyes!”
- “Come to think of it- maybe you wouldn’t be bad to- interfere with…”
- “All right, let’s have some rough-house!” / “We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning!”

Question 2

Blanche and Stanley’s fight over Stella is representative of the battle between ideologies

Answer 2

Stella is positioned as a battleground for the conflict, having ideological connection to both Stanley and Blanche
- “Belle Reve” / “abandoned Belle Reve” / “stayed and fought for it”
- “(with girlish laughter” You ought to see their wives” / “One time (laughing) the plaster - (laughing) cracked-“
- “And try to understand her and be nice to her, Stan”
- “of a background obviously quite different from her husband’s”
- “you’ve got to realise that Blanche and I grew up under very different circumstances than you did.”
- “I pulled you down off them columns and how you loved it, having them coloured lights going!”
Stella adapts to the New American ideologies and accepts her own desire
- “Red hots!” / “red stained package”
- “The best I could do was make my own living, Blanche”
- “She jumps up and kisses him which he accepts with lordly composure”
- “You’re making much too much fuss about this”
- “He smashed all the light bulbs with the heel of my slipper!” / “I was- sort of - thrilled by it”
- “I’m not in anything I want to get out of.”
- “Stella has embraced him–with both arms, fiercely, and full in the view of Blanche. He laughs and clasps her head to him”
Stella’s prioritisation of her own survival ultimately facilitates Blanche’s demise and cements Stanley (and therefore New America) as victorious
- “And wasn’t we happy together? Wasn’t it all okay? Till she showed here.” / “Take me to the hospital.”
- “I- just told her that- we’d made arrangements for her to rest in the country.” / “I don’t know if I did the right thing.”
- “I couldn’t believe her story and go on living with Stanley.”
- “Oh, God, oh please God, don’t hurt her!” / “What have I done to my sister?”
- “Stella accepts the child, sobbingly.”