Streetcar scenes

Question 1

Para 1: Blanche and regret

Answer 1

‘you disgust me’ - SB stereotype
‘a boy just a boy’ - echoes end of S1 (Blakean innocence of husband) - blatant juxtaposition between his purity and her immorality - sly ref to how soc will regret treatment of homosexuals
‘I cannot be alone I am not well’

Question 2

Blanche however contradictory

Answer 2

French prostitute - rolling eyes
when recalling death pours drink even though scene 1 ‘I don’t drink’

Question 3

Significance of pouring drink - context

Answer 3

Williams - Frank Merlo

Question 4

Stanley and fate

Answer 4

Scene 4: listens in on conversation
‘ape-like’ ‘stone-age’
‘tiger tiger’
‘pounce’
‘We’ve had this date from the beginning’ Mitch tore down lantern

Question 5

How Blanche defends fam but Stella does not

Answer 5

Stanley ‘charges’ at Stella - Napoleonic code s2
B: defends
S: ‘I couldn’t believe her and go on living with Stanley’

Question 6

Description of characters

Answer 6

B: ‘incongruous to the setting’ ‘white clothes suggest a moth’
‘Red bath robes’
‘Heaves a red meat package’
‘Since earliest manhood the centre of his life has been pleasure with women’

Question 7

Significance of the Streetcar

Answer 7

Blanche comes to Elysian fields - transfers from a Streetcar named Desire to one named Cemeteries

Question 8

Context of the Old south

Answer 8

The Old South followed a strict Christian religion and condemned homosexuality as immoral exemplified in Leviticus 18:22.

Question 9

Locomotive represent

Answer 9

Perhaps this depicts how she does not live in the present but instead constantly reflects on the moments of her past. This would have contradicted Jesus’ teachings of being ‘the lily in the field’ as Blanche does not have a direct focus on God, thus juxtaposes Christian morals

Question 10

Men in 1940s America

Answer 10

men in 1940s America held the dominant role within society whilst a woman was perceived as their social inferior and expected to look after the home

Question 11

Scene of the rape scene

Answer 11

‘lurid reflections’ which hold a ‘grotesque menacing form’ synonymous maybe to Stanley’s twisted soul

Question 12

Why does Stanley act as he does

Answer 12

Through a post-war lens this is hardly surprising as a surplus of women in male jobs in the war may have threatened traditional masculinity. Consequently, this caused the repression of minority groups, such as homosexuals, to the margins of society, so men could assert themselves in businesses again as superior