Streetcar - Survival of the Fittest Flashcards
Those who survive in the play are those who have adapted to the progressive, ruthless New American world - Stella is able to adapt
Clear that her and Blanche were raised in the Old South, she changes once moving to New Orleans
- “Belle Reve” / “abandoned Belle Reve” / “stayed and fought for it”
- “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 accepts her own desire, conforms to the values of the New American world
- “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”
This adaptation is for her own survival
- “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.”
Blanche’s inability to adapt is what leads to her downfall
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.”
- “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!”
- “But I was a fool enough to believe you was straight.” / “You lied to me Blanche.”
However this deceptive repression is ultimately what leads to her downfall, it means that the potential for Mitch to save her is destroyed and positions her directly against Stanley, who views her as a threat to his New American ideologies
- “But I was a fool enough to believe you was straight.” / “You lied to me Blanche.”
- “he places his hands on her waist and tries to turn her around” / “been missing all summer”
- “fumbling to embrace her”
- “What such a man has to offer is animal force and he gave a wonderful exhibition of that! But the only way to live with such a man is to-go to bed with him! And that’s your job- not mine!”
- “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!”
