1. A Streetcar Named Desire
Symbolism
A Streetcar Named Desire

2. Learning Objectives
Explore and discuss how motifs can be symbolic in A Streetcar Named Desire

3. A Streetcar Named Desire
“The told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at – Elysian Fields!” Blanche, Scene 1.
Scene 4: Blanche tries to persuade Stella to leave Stanley after he is violent towards her.
BLANCHE: What you’re talking about is brutal desire – just – Desire – the name of that rattle trap streetcar…
STELLA: Haven’t you ever ridden on that street car?
BLANCHE: It brought me here. – Where I’m not wanted and where I’m ashamed to be…

4. Meat
We first see Stanley coming home with a red-stained package from the butchers which he heaves at Stella, “Catch!”

5. Light
“There say is something about her uncertain manner, as well as her white clothes, that suggests a moth.” Stage directions in Scene 1 introducing Blanche.
Blanche describes her husband’s death tp Mitch in Scene 6 and says, “never for one moment since has there been any light that’s stronger than this – kitchen – candle.”

6. Light
“ I can’t stand a naked bulb, anymore than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.” Blanche to Mitch when she asks him to put the paper lantern over the light bulb in the kitchen.
Mitch holding Blanche up to the light in Scene nine. “Let’s turn the light on here.”

7. Baby Stanley calls Stella “my baby doll”
Blanche calls Stella, “my baby”
When Stanley hits Stella, Blanche screams, “My sister is going to have a baby!”
Stanley calls Mitch a “bone headed cry baby”, S11.

8. Clothes
Blanche dresses in white, pastel colours and floral prints. In Scene 11, at the end of the play, Blanche romanticises her own death. “And I’ll be buried at sea sown up in a clean white sack and thrown overboard… into an ocean as blue as my first lovers eyes!”
Furs and fake jewels. Stanley calls the rhinestone tiara, “diamonds! A crown for an empress!” in S2 but mocks Blanche’s “Mardi Gras outfit” and “crazy crown” in S10.
Stanley and friends at the poker game in Scene three wear the raw colours of a childhood spectrum. Patterns clash.

9. Clothes
Stanley after hitting Stella at the end of Scene Three, stumbles half-dressed out to the porch
Blanche tells Stanley that Mitch, “dared to come here in his work clothes” in Scene 10.
Stanley’s “silk pyjamas I wore on my wedding night!”
The jacket Blanche is wearing at the end of the play. Eunice and Stella argue over the colour and she says “It’s Della Robia Blue. The blue of the robe in the old Madonna pictures”.
Uniforms. The doctor takes off his hat and now becomes personalised.

10. Strangers
Blanche to Mitch in S9, “Yes, I had many intimacies with strangers. After the death of Allan - intimacies with strangers was all I seemed able to fill my empty heart with…I think it was panic, just panic, that drove me from one to another, hunting for some protection – here and there, in the most - unlikely places – even, at last, in a seventeen year old boy…”
At the end of the play, Blanche tells the doctor, “I have always relied on the kindness of strangers.” What does this suggest about Blanche’s life?

11. Animals
In the opening of Scene 2. Blanche is Bathing, Stella is completing her toilette. Blanche’s dress, a flowered print is laid our on Stella’s bed.
STANLEY: “What’s all this monkey doings?”

12. Animals Blanche askes Stella about Mitch, “Is he a wolf?” in Scene 3.
Stanley at the poker night in S3, “You hens cut out that conversation in there!”
“He was as good as a lamb when I came back.” Stella, S4.
“What such a man has to offer is animal force…But the only way to live with such a man is to – to go to bed with him! And that’s your job – not mine!” Blanche to Stella in S4.

13. Animals
“There’s something downright - bestial - about him!” Blanche to Stella in S4. “His poker night! – you call it – his party of apes!”
“I have been foolish, casting my pearls before swine!” Blanche in S10.

14. Animals
Stanley of Mitch in S7, “He’s not going to jump in a tank with a school of sharks now(marry Blanche)”
“Hey canary bird! Toots! Get OUT of the BATHROOM!” Stanley to Blanche, S7.

15. Animals
Mitch to B in S9, “Didn’t you stay at a hotel called the Flamingo?
B: Flamingo? No! Tarantula was the name of it!”
Mitch to Blanche, S9: “you been lapping it (Stanley’s liquor) up all summer like a wildcat.”
“Tiger – tiger! Drop the bottle top! We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning!” Stanley to Blanche in Scene 10.

16. Water Blanche bathes often Blanche imagines being buried at sea.
Stanley to Stella in S7, “For the last year or two she’s been washed up like poison. “
Escapism in alcohol.

17. Truth and lies
“All right; now, Mr Kowalski, let us proceed without any more double-talk. I’m ready to answer all questions. I’ve nothing to hide. What is it?” Blanche, Scene 2.
Blanche to Mitch, S6: “It’s just that I have – old fashioned ideals” She rolls her eyes, knowing he cannot see her face.
“What – contemptible lies!” Stella to Stanley in S7 when he talks about Blanche’s past.
Scene 7: STANLEY: How many candles you putting in that cake?
STELLA: I’ll stop at twenty-five.
Stanley to Stella, “You’re goddamn right I told him! I’d have that on my conscience the rest of my life if I knew all that stuff and let my best friend get caught!” S7.

18. Truth and lies
Blanche to Mitch, S9: “I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth… Never inside, I didn’t lie in my heart…”
Stella, S11. “I couldn’t believe her story and go on living with Stanley.”

19. Poker
Poker is a gambling game, and also a game of of chance. It is no accident that Stanley is playing cards in two key scenes. In Scene 2 he prioritises his game over allowing the women to speak or play the radio. What does the fact that he is also playing cards when the doctor and nurse come for Blanche show us about his character? What else is he playing with?

20. Recap
Many motifs throughout the play are heavily symbolic. You may see more as you read. How many can you remember and can you match them to quotes?
The streetcar
Place names
Meat
Light
Water
Strangers
Babies
Clothes
Animals
Poker