Scene 1:

At rise, we see a two-story building in a poor, charming, diverse section of New Orleans, called Elysian Fields. It is an evening in early May in the 1930s. The Kowalskis live in the downstairs apartment, and Eunice and Steve live upstairs.

The action begins with the arrival of Blanche DuBois, dressed in white, and both looking and feeling entirely out of place on this downtrodden street. Blanche stares at the building in disbelief – her directions brought her to Elysian Fields, but it looks nothing like what she expected. Eunice tells Blanche that she has come to the right place – Blanche's sister, Stella, lives on the first floor. After Eunice lets Blanche into the apartment, she runs around the corner to fetch Stella.

Left alone, Blanche surreptitiously takes a drink of whiskey, and puts the bottle and tumbler away. Stella arrives and they embrace happily, Blanche babbling excitedly about Stella's appearance and not giving her sister a chance to get a word in edge-wise. Stella offers Blanche a drink, which she makes a show of accepting reluctantly. The quality of the neighborhood comes up quickly; Blanche is appalled that Stella is living in such conditions. Stella is perfectly happy with her lot, and doesn't take kindly to Blanche's questions.

As the conversation progresses, it is revealed that Blanche is taking a leave of absence from her position as a school teacher, and plans to stay with Stella for an unspecified period of time. Blanche is concerned about living in such close quarters with Stanley, and makes no effort to hide her discomfort with his blue collar background. Stella is quite in love with her husband, however.

Blanche broaches the subject of the DuBois family plantation, Belle Reve. She is immediately on the defensive as she describes how hard she worked to keep the plantation running, while Stella left to live her own life in New Orleans. A long string of deaths in the family ate up all the money, while the process of nursing dying loved ones took their toll on Blanche's psyche, and in the end Belle Reve was lost. Stella is upset at both the news and the accusatory way Blanche broke it to her, and she goes into the bathroom to cry.

Stanley enters the apartment with Mitch and Steve, all returning from bowling. Blanche hesitantly introduces herself to Stanley, who did not know Blanche was coming to town. He asks Blanche some straight forward questions about herself and her plans, while removing his sweaty shirt and taking a drink. Blanche is appalled. As the scene ends, it is revealed that Blanche was married once, when she was young, but the boy died. The recollection makes her feel sick, and she buries her head in her arms.

Analysis

"They told me to take a street-car named Desire." Blanche's first action in the play is one of confusion, ambivalence, disorientation. She cannot believe where she has ended up, standing at her sister's rundown New Orleans door step, or how she got there, on a pair of streetcars named Desire and Cemeteries. Blanche makes it clear from the start that her actions are involuntary – "they," some unknown entity, told her to take a street-car named Desire. This is both meaningful in the present tense and on a deeper thematic level. Blanche is lost; her life is falling apart and she has nowhere to go. Only desperation and a lack of other options has brought her to Elysian Fields, a tenement as different from its heavenly title as can be imagined by Blanche's sheltered mind. And we will learn that throughout Blanche's adult life, without any agency, she has been riding two metaphorical streetcars named Desire and Cemeteries – the dual themes of lust and death that will be paired constantly through the play. Just as circumstance has led her to the Kowalskis' doorstep, so too did circumstance lead her to a life driven by desire and death. The impulses are paired from the very start; which will win?

All of the major themes and elements of A Streetcar Named Desire are introduced as quickly as possible at the top of the play. Tennessee Williams teasingly drops clues about all the major reveals of the second and third acts in the introductory exposition, as though he were writing a mystery. In a way, the play is a mystery, with Stanley investigating Blanche's background and an ever-unraveling layer of truth and un-truth is exposed to the ugly glare of the light. But for now, in the first scene, we only get tantalizing hints as Williams references all the major issues: the loss of Belle Reve; Blanche's drinking; the fear and adoration Stella feels for her husband; Blanche's fear of the light and preoccupation with appearances; the death of Blanche's husband. The second scene brings in the elements particular to Blanche and Stanley's relationship, and from there all the foundation is laid to send the story hurtling down the tracks towards its conclusion.

Williams provides copious stage directions in his plays, and they are both functional and poetic. He does not simply state the necessary movements, nor does he serve as a backseat director, programming every gesture before an actor has touched the text. Rather, his directions are like a depiction of a potential performance – the outline of the Blanche and the Stanley that he sees, but written in gossamer and smoke. For instance, he dictates that Blanche should enter in "a white suit with a fluffy bodice," and further describes her outfit as something appropriate for a cocktail party. But this is not Williams prescribing the elements of what we see, but rather the overall effect – "there is something about her uncertain manner… that suggests a moth." An interesting choice of comparison, as moths are drawn to light the way Blanche is desperately drawn from it.

Also important is the detailed description of the set. We have only one set for the entire play – the crowded apartment of the Kowalskis – but thanks to transparent walls we have access to the street outside as well as the two rooms and bath. Underscored is the cramped claustrophobia that enters the apartment with Blanche, and the heightened emotions of the bunker as Blanche's hide-out extends longer and longer. The outside world regularly penetrates the apartment, with visits from Mitch and Eunice and the occasional poker night. But rather than letting in air and light, these penetrations just force Blanche to retreat deeper and deeper into her fantasy, hiding from the encroaching walls of the apartment.

But in the first scene, of course, Blanche is still putting on a happy face. She babbles away at Stella, full of chipper gossip and cardboard reminiscences. Blanche deftly deflects any criticism or questioning from her younger sister, and when certain revelations become necessary (as in the telling of the loss of Belle Reve) Blanche succeeds in spinning them around so that she is breaking the news on her own terms. Her defensive strategy is to stay on the offensive – criticizing Stella's lifestyle and social standing when Blanche is in an even worse situation herself, defending herself against blame for the loss of Belle Reve before Stella can even say a word. This Blanche has been twisting and manipulating truths and lies for a long time, and her method seems at first like it will succeed in her new life as well. But then she meets Stanley.

Scene 2

The next night. While Blanche soaks in a tub, Stella tells Stanley that Belle Reve is lost. She is vague on the details, but Stanley is persistent. He is very suspicious about Blanche and her motives, and wants to see the paperwork regarding the sale of the plantation. Stanley brings up the Napoleonic code, which says that what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband, and vice versa, and therefore if Stella was swindled then Stanley was swindled as well.

Stanley raids Blanche's trunk and throws around her fox-pieces and costume jewelry, accusing Blanche of using the money from the sale of Belle Reve to pay for these fineries. Stella storms out in a huff.

Blanche comes out from the bathroom and tries to harmlessly flirt with Stanley, ignoring the clear violation of her trunk. After a few attempts at using her usual techniques, though, Blanche realizes that Stanley cannot be charmed. She switches tacks to play by his rules, and talks plainly about the loss of Belle Reve. The lawyers' papers indicate that the place was lost on a mortgage, after many generations of family mismanagement had already whittled the estate down to nothing. Still suspicious, Stanley takes the papers and declares that he will show them to a lawyer friend, but for now he is placated.

Stanley tells Blanche that Stella is expecting a baby, and she is pleased. Stella returns and takes Blanche away from the apartment so the men can have their poker night.

Analysis

Stanley and Blanche's "date with each other from the beginning" is set up in their first significant exchange in Scene 2. Blanche is coy and flirting – Stanley will have none of that. Her defenses are already on high as she emerges from the bathroom to find her belongings strewn about, but she treats it lightly to avoid confrontation. She persists in her levity until Stanley manages to communicate that he is not going to be brushed off. But showing that her training at coquetry is nothing if not flexible, she embraces Stanley's tone and declares her intent to be straightforward and honest, to "lay her cards on the table," in an extension of the continuing poker theme. Stanley is off-put by Blanche's track change – he had expected her to break under his direct pressure, but she deftly parries his advance by naming the game. "A woman's charm is fifty per cent illusion," she admits, but she still manages to diffuse Stanley by seeming to put all her cards on the table – except for the one up her sleeve. Nothing hides a truth so well as admitting to other truths.

Stanley eventually gets his hands on the legal papers, but of course he can't tell anything by looking at them himself – he came into the battle expecting that by demanding the papers he would force Blanche to admit wrongdoing, but she turned over the papers without a fight and now he has to figure out what to do with them. Meanwhile, Blanche monologues about the "epic fornications" that whittled down the DuBois family estate to its essentials – a house and a cemetery – and left Blanche and Stella's generation with nothing but death and taxes. Belle Reve was not lost to Blanche's failure, or to General Sherman, or to a shifting economy, but to a long line of indiscretions. The street-car called Desire brought the DuBois to the one called Cemeteries, and in the end that was the entire legacy Blanche's ancestors left for her.

As Blanche freely reveals this family darkness, and Stanley stares at the meaningless legal papers, Stanley loses the steam behind his accusations. Defeated, he retreats to his room with the papers, as Blanche brags to Stella that she successfully merged her "jasmine perfume" approach with Stanley's primitive directness, and has emerged the victor. Blanche is quite self-aware here – she knows that jasmine perfume alone will not save her. The blood and dirt of the Kowalskis of the world must be mixed into the solution for the jasmine perfume to last.

This scene highlights a difference between Stanley and Blanche as well as their similarity. Stanley is convinced that Blanche is perpetuating a swindle – Blanche cannot even conceive of such a thing. She comes from a social class that does not know how to make money, only how to spend it. She cannot conceive of turning a profit on the loss of Belle Reve – Stanley is projecting his own values and interests on to a woman from a very different background.

A tension between a romantic and a realistic world-view is present throughout the entire play, embodied in the contrast between Stanley and Blanche. Clearly, Blanche is the romantic – where she sees "the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir," Stella sees simply the L&N tracks – and Stanley "no wool over this boy's eyes" Kowalski is the realist. But Williams isn't setting up a simple dichotomy, because neither Blanche nor Stanley is exactly what they think they are. Blanche's romantic worldview is as much a desire as anything else – she has seen the truth, and she chooses to ignore it. Stanley, meanwhile, believes he is seeing through the deceit and yet mistakes rhinestones for diamonds and a mortgaged old house on twenty acres for Tara. This complicated dichotomy will be present throughout the rest of the play.

Scene 3

Poker night. Stanley and the boys sit around the kitchen table, swilling whiskey and playing cards. Mitch complains that he has a sick mother at home, and hides in the bathroom for awhile.

Blanche and Stella come home, too early. They are not welcome around the poker game. Mitch comes out of the bathroom and is immediately taken with Blanche, who does not fail to notice him either. The game continues and the girls gossip and listen to the radio, but Stanley is upset at the noise and makes them turn off the radio.

Mitch deals out of the hand and goes to talk to Blanche. He offers her a cigarette from a silver case with an inscription from a dead girl to whom Mitch was once attached. Blanche asks Mitch to help her hang a paper lantern, to cover the naked light bulb. They talk about her former students, and how she enjoyed watching their youthful discovery of love even if it meant that they didn't have much interest in her English curriculum.

Blanche puts the radio back on and begins to dance. Stanley storms into the bedroom and grabs the radio, throwing it out the window. Stella hollers at him, and he hits her. The men pull Stanley away to calm him down. Stella cries that she wants to leave, and Blanche leads her upstairs to Eunice's apartment.

Stanley comes to his senses and realizes that Stella is gone. He goes outside and begins bellowing his wife's name: Stell-ahhhh! Eunice comes out and tells Stanley to hush, but he continues to holler. After a moment, Stella emerges and embraces her husband. He lifts her up and carries her back into their flat.

Blanche emerges, fearful, and realizes that Stella has gone back to Stanley. She is confused and scared. Mitch appears again and she bottles up her interest in her sister's behavior to continue flirting with Mitch.

Analysis

"Poker shouldn't be played in a house with women." Mitch is adamant in his conviction that the conflict that erupts in the Kowalski household is due to the flammable combination of poker and women. It's not the card playing per se, however, that makes the situation volatile.

Stanley sees himself as a man's man, with all the whiskey and cussing and misogyny he feels that implies. Poker night is a testosterone-fueled occasion, and spirits are running high and flowing fast. When the women come home, Stanley has been losing money, and needs to save face with his buddies. The combination of liquor, the late hour, the bad poker hands, and Stanley's increasing annoyance at his sister-in-law's presence all lead to him finally striking his wife.

But it is clear that this isn't the first time, nor is it the last. "It makes me so mad when he does that in front of people," Stella says, when Stanley smacks her the first time. This sentence is loaded – it doesn’t make her mad that he smacks her, but that he smacks her in public. They can do what they want when they're alone, but as long as Blanche is around they will not be alone.

The reality/romantic dichotomy is further explored in this scene as Blanche spins a gossamer web for Mitch in the diffuse lantern light. She masks her age in shadow, and her own darkness in light banter. She even translates her name for Mitch as "white woods, like an orchard in spring," despite the fact that she is well past her springtime. ( Anglicized, Blanche's surname is DuBoys – which she does, all too well)

The famous image from this scene – and indeed, the most famous image in the Williams canon – is Stanley Kowalski, symbol of virility and manhood, kneeling exposed and half-naked on the pavement as he desperately cries his wife's name. It is a difficult scene, in performance. Aside from avoiding the specter of Marlon Brando, the actor must also avoid the maudlin in making Stanley's desperation both sexy and terrifying. Stanley and Stella's reunion is without words – their connection is silent, physical. Stanley must likewise be a physical, commanding, dominating force in this scene, a center of gravity to attract Stella and pull her towards him, pull her down the stairs and quite literally down to his level.

To make this scene effective, the audience must be feeling exactly the same things as Blanche: a mixture of fear and curiosity. For Blanche, desire is something to be dressed up in lace and perfume and hidden from sight – it certainly exists in her life, as one of the driving forces that brought her downfall, but never as baldly and bawdily as with her sister and her brother-in-law. The only man Blanche has ever loved was her husband, but due to incompatible sexualities there could not have been any passion – Blanche has never experienced this lustful love, but only calculated lust and chaste love. It is something foreign to her, something animal, and she fears it – but is drawn to it just the same. It is an incredibly complex moment of drama, rightfully iconic.

Scene 4

The morning after, Blanche fearfully returns to the apartment to find her sister luxuriating in bed. Blanche had spent the night worried sick about Stella, but the conflict of the previous night was forgotten by its participants as soon as they were back in each other's arms. Stella admits that she is rather thrilled by Stanley's violent streak, and Blanche is horrified.

Blanche attempts to convince Stella that she can get out of her situation, but Stella insists that she is not in anything she wished to get out of. Blanche doesn't really hear her, though, and brainstorms an escape plan involving wiring an old beau for money. She calls Western Union, but can't think of what to say. The focus shifts, and it becomes clear that Blanche's concern for finances is just as much for herself as for Stella – she is completely broke.

Blanche continues to try to convince Stella to leave, but Stella is firm – she is happy. It doesn't matter whether or not Blanche understands, because all that matters to Stella is her relationship with Stanley. Blanche puts a name to it – desire – and compares it to the street-car of the same name. Stella asks whether Blanche had ever ridden on that street-car, and Blanche admits that she has, that it's what brought her here. Stella tells her to stop being so superior in that case, but Blanche still thinks such emotions are the stuff of brief affairs, not a marriage and a life.

Blanche gives a speech telling her opinion of Stanley as common and animalistic, while Stella listens wearily. Stanley arrives home, unnoticed by the women, and listens in on this speech. Blanche compares Stanley to a caveman, his poker night to a party of apes, and exhorts Stella not to regress to Stanley's primitive level but to evolve into a higher level of human.

After listening to Blanche's speech, Stanley steps out and steps back in, this time making his presence known and pretending he had just arrived. In response to Blanche, Stella embraces her husband plainly. Stanley grins at Blanche as she watches.

Analysis

Scene 4 gives us the logical extension of the end of Scene 3 – the morning after, Stella is floating on a cloud of post-coital bliss, while Blanche continues with the same bluster of contradictory emotions she felt the night before. Blanche looks at Stella's situation and sees a damsel in distress, in need of rescuing, but Stella has long forgiven Stanley for his behavior. In fact, she admits that she likes his violence – when he smashed the lights with the heel of her slipper on their wedding night, it gave her a thrill.

The sisters' conversation goes round and round as Stella keeps insisting that she is happy and Blanche remains convinced that Stella is deluded. It is a troubling scene that can be played several ways – who is right? Is this domestic violence, and only Blanche is able to see that Stella is in a dangerous situation where she cannot make decisions for herself? Or is this really just the nature of the Kowalskis' relationship, and Blanche is too frigid to comprehend the couple's chemistry? The play as a whole seems to side with Stella, up until the moment Stanley crosses the line in Scene 10. For now, however, Blanche appears to be seeing what she wants to see – her baby sister mesmerized by the brutish Pollack – despite Stella's protestations.

The hypocrisy of Blanche's position is made very clear in the important dialog exchange about desire, both the concept and the street-car:

Blanche: What you are talking about is brutal desire – just – Desire! – the name of that rattle-trap street-car[…]

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.

Stella: Then don't you think your superior attitude is a bit out of place?

Of course, it is clear to the audience that they are discussing both the street-car Desire and the kind of desire that brings two people together. Each line of this exchange can be read in two ways – is Stella saying Blanche should drop her attitude as she knows she's not wanted at the Kowalskis' flat? Or that she should understand Stella's position because she too has felt crippling, damaging desire?

Scene 5

Some time later, Blanche is writing a letter to Shep Huntleigh, her former beau, threatening coquettishly to pay him a visit. Upstairs, Eunice and Steve can be heard fighting.

Stanley asks Blanche if she knows a fellow named Shaw. This Shaw is an acquaintance of Stanley's, and he claims that he knew a loose woman who used to keep rooms at a hotel called the Flamingo in Laurel. Blanche says she knows of the Flamingo by reputation and would not set foot in it, but the accusation has been made. Stanley leaves.

In a panic, Blanche asks Stella what she has heard regarding her reputation. Blanche admits that she misbehaved somewhat after the loss of Belle Reve. She feels that she is too soft and no longer attractive enough for her softness to work. Stella fixes Blanche a drink while Blanche gets sentimental – her behavior is somewhat erratic in this scene. She insists that she won't overstay her welcome at the Kowalskis, and screams when she drops a drink.

Blanche talks about her relationship with Mitch, and how she hasn't told him her real age and won't let him do more than give her a goodnight kiss. She wants to bait him into marriage, for security. Stella assures her that it will all work out, and leaves.

A paperboy stops by to take a collection, and Blanche is immediately interested. He is wary of her advances, but she is drawn to his youth, and kisses him briefly. He runs off. Mitch appears for their date, and Blanche greets him gaily.

Analysis

Blanche's deceptions begin to crumble in this scene, as Stanley reveals his investigations into her background. He comes close to an outright accusation, but chooses to instead make sure that Blanche knows that he knows, and to let her sweat while wondering exactly how much he has been told.

Blanche expresses to Stella her anxiety about her reputation – she does not want to confess, but wants to find out what Stella already knows. And, tellingly, rather than apologizing she rationalizes her behavior. In a moment of self-awareness – of seeing realistically rather than romantically – she admits that she is a soft person, not hard or self-sufficient, but with her waning attractiveness she doesn't know how much longer she can sustain the illusion. Or, in her interesting choice of words, how much longer she "can turn the trick." This choice of idiom implies that Blanche is prostituting herself – not literally, most likely, but rather that she is using her body and her charms to buy stability and comfort and association in a cruel world, and she is aware that this is a commodity with its expiration date fast approaching.

But this moment of poetic lucidity is followed by a moment of imbalance, as Blanche shows uncomfortably strong emotion for her sister and then cries out as her drink spills. Stella sees for the first time that her sister is perhaps not quite mentally stable, as her emotions ride far out of sync with the content of the exchange.

Blanche blames her nerves on worry about her relationship with Mitch, making clear her intention to win his hand, to turn one last trick with her faded propriety and buy herself some permanent stability. Her affection for Mitch is real, but her concerns for her personal welfare and security are more real, and they drive her to manipulate Mitch into behaving as she desires.

Her intentions are undermined in the last part of the scene, before Mitch arrives, when we see a glimpse of just what it means when Blanche says she "wasn't so good the last two years or so." Culture looks more kindly on female nymphomaniacs than male – Blanche does not appear to be a predator as she flirts with the paperboy, so much as sad and pathetic and kind of creepy. She is drawn to children, children who are innocent and gay as she imagines herself to be. Trapped emotionally in a fictional past – was her childhood so innocent with the epic fornications of her family, or her youthful love so pure with her "degenerate" husband? She grasps at the straws of youth that she sees in the paperboy and countless other youths before him.

Scene 6

Late that night, Blanche and Mitch are returning home. She apologizes for having been a poor date that evening. Mitch asks if he may kiss her goodnight – he is unsure whether she wants him to kiss her, because she has discouraged him in the past. Mitch says he does not mind her prudishness, because she is unlike any other girl he has dated.

They enter the apartment and have a drink. Mitch is awkward and uncomfortable, sweating through his shirt. They flirt and Mitch tries to embrace her, but she begs him off, rolling her eyes when he can't see her face.

She asks whether Stanley has talked to Mitch about her, and Mitch says that Stanley doesn't understand her, but he doesn't think he hates her either. Mitch changes the subject and asks Blanche her age, on behalf of his mother. She avoids the question and asks about his mother, who wants to see Mitch settled soon so he won't be lonely when she dies.

Blanche begins to reminisce about her dead husband, Allan. She was unable to fill a need for him, and shortly after the wedding she caught him with an older male friend. On the dance floor that evening, she confronted him about what she'd seen, and he ran out of the hall and shot himself in the mouth.

At the end of her speech, Mitch comforts Blanche, saying that they both need somebody and perhaps they might be that somebody for each other, and he kisses her.

Analysis

This is the only scene in the play in which we can observe that Blanche knows she is play-acting – for two brief moments, she "breaks character" and we can see her awareness of her hypocrisy and moonshine. At her own prudish behavior ,Blanche rolls her eyes, visible to the audience but not Mitch. And when she has determined that Mitch cannot speak French, she riskily asks that famous question, "Voulez-vous couches avec moi c'est soi?" - "Do you want to go to bed with me tonight?" But this scene is the first and last time she shows any awareness of playing a role, and what signifies her descent from illusion to delusion is her inability, in the last few scenes, to any longer distinguish between her game and reality

The main point of this scene is the speech about Allan and the darkness he introduced into Blanche's happy young life. The light and darkness imagery burns brightly through this speech, as Blanche compares her new love to a blinding light – something so bright that you can't actually see it at all. And this was the case with Allan, who she loved so completely and instantly that she did not realize he was gay until it was too late.

After Blanche confronts Allan, he shoots himself. As she recounts this story, we hear the polka, the Varsouviana, from the dance hall, which was playing during the scene she remembers. The music stops with the gunshot – she is not just remembering but reliving, and the death of her husband stopped the music in the dance hall but also stopped the music in her life.

"And then the searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been any light that's stronger than this kitchen candle." Allan's death shrouded Blanche's life in darkness, both the kind that sucks out happiness and leaves only despair, but also the kind that she hides in to avoid the flicker of the unforgiving light. She retreated into herself after this trauma, cloaking her fragile mind with shadows and delusions, and only sneaking out to find comfort in the embrace of strangers, to allow her to feel something that was alive.

Her speech also further ties together the dual themes of desire and death, but in what way? Does Allan's desire lead to his death? Or is the causal force Blanche's denial of that desire? Has she ridden the street-car named Desire to the end of its line and found no transfer except to Cemeteries, or does she reach Cemeteries precisely because she has decided to disembark from Desire?

Scene 7 and 8

Time has passed, and it is now the fall. Stella is preparing the apartment for Blanche's birthday. Stanley arrives and tells Stella that he has learned the truth about Blanche. He has been checking her background, and has discovered that she is no lily-white virgin. Blanche lived at the Flamingo, a hotel known for not interfering with its guests activities, but she was kicked out just the same when all of Laurel ran Blanche out of town on a rail for her own epic fornications. She didn't resign from the school but was fired before the term ended, because she had been dallying with a seventeen-year-old boy.

Stella doesn't believe the stories and thinks people have been telling lies. Stanley tells her they needn't expect Mitch to be coming over for birthday cake that evening – as a good friend, Stanley felt obligated to tell Mitch what he'd learned. Mitch is no longer going to marry her. And Stanley reveals that he bought a bus ticket to send Blanche back to Laurel on Tuesday.

Blanche emerges from the bathroom and sees from the looks on the Kowalskis' faces that something has happened, but neither will tell her what.

Forty-five minutes later, a dismal birthday party is wrapping up. Blanche has been stood up by Mitch. Blanche feebly tells a joke, and it falls flat. Stella criticizes Stanley's table manners, and he loses his temper, shouting that Stella has been showing him too much disrespect and calling him too many names since her sister got there. He stalks out.

Blanche tries to get Stella to tell her what happened while she was bathing, but Stella refuses. Blanche telephones Mitch, against Stella's protestations, and leaves a message. Stanley returns and embraces Stella, saying everything will be alright once Blanche has left and they can have privacy again.

Blanche hangs up the phone and watches Stella putting candles in the birthday cake, and tells her she should save them for the baby's birthdays. Stanley offers her a birthday present – a bus ticket back to Laurel. Blanche tries to smile, but cannot, and runs to the bathroom to gag.

Stella is upset at Stanley for being unnecessarily cruel – everyone has been cruel to Blanche since she was a girl, and that's what changed her. Stanley speaks of how Stella thought he was common when they met, but he pulled her out of her plantation dreams and into the dirt with him, and they were so happy until Blanche arrived. But Stella has stopped listening – the baby is coming. They leave for the hospital.

Analysis

Scene 7 is largely functional, setting in motion the action of the remainder of the play. Now all the cards are finally out on the table. The audience knows the full back story, and need only sit back and watch how it unfolds.

By keeping Blanche out of this denouement, Williams heightens the suspense of the succeeding scene. Everyone knows the truth about Blanche now – the Kowalskis, Mitch, Blanche, the audience – and all that remains is for Blanche to know that they know. In a play like Streetcar where much of the action has occurred off-stage in the past, it is an effective dramatic device to have the audience know more information than the protagonist. This device camouflages a lack of action and lends a drumming inevitability to the succeeding scenes, while elevating the meaning of everyone's actions – we know what they're thinking, and we are just as tense about it as they are. It is a technique well represented in Williams' plays, especially the ones with dead gay men (Streetcar, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Suddenly Last Summer, etc).

All in all, scene 7 serves as a triggering incident for the third act of the play (in the original performance, there were intermissions after scenes 4 and 6), while further developing Stella's crumbling trust of her sister and Stanley's need to protect his wife and his friend above all else.

At the end of Scene 7 something broke, and Blanche could feel it. She sees the result immediately in Scene 8, when Mitch doesn't come to her birthday party. His absence is felt deeply by all involved, an elephantine black hole in the room. Blanche knows what has happened but cannot bring herself to acknowledge it – she telephones Mitch and worries that something has happened to him, but she knows she has been stood up. She uses the age-old technique of chattering away to avoid the conversation that is about to happen, whether she likes it or not And when Stanley leaves the room and Blanche begins to question Stella, it is clear that she also knows why she has been stood up.

Despite Blanche's deception, and despite his insistence elsewhere that Blanche is not a hero, Williams pushes the audience's sympathies towards Blanche through this scene. Stanley is right about her, of course. But the way he handles the situation is abusive and manipulative, and Blanche is clearly made to be the victim. Stanley loses his remaining sympathy when he hands the bus ticket to Blanche, committing an act of that "deliberate cruelty," the only sin Blanche cannot forgive.

But Williams then gets Blanche off the stage – it is not necessary for us to see her rage and humiliation, because we can feel it in our gut – and returns Stanley to a level of humanity in his final solo interaction with his wife. He is raging about the good old days and about being the king of his castle, but the moment he sees that something's wrong with Stella, his bluster and venom melts away. The stage direction is powerful here: "He is with her now," Williams indicates. Stanley had been off on his tangent, off in his world, but when Stella needs him he is immediately with her, completely, and Blanche is forgotten.

Scene 9

A while later, Mitch arrives. They have both been drinking, and he is upset. Blanche babbles, trying to pretend this was just a normal broken date. She hears the Varsouviana playing in her head, and draws attention to the fact that the music stops after the gunshot. She avoids Mitch's attempts to get to the point, offering him a drink which he refuses on the grounds of it being Stan's liquor.

Mitch states that he has never seen Blanche in the light, that she has only ever gone out with him at night, in dimly lighted places. He tears the paper lantern off the lightbulb and stares at her in the electric light. She cries that she doesn't want realism, but magic. Mitch turns out the light and says, bitterly, that he doesn't mind her being older than he thought but he can't abide with the truth of her spotted past.

Something in her breaks at the accusations, and she admits wildly to "intimacies with strangers," which seemed to be all she was able to fill her empty heart with after Allan's death. But she'd hoped that Mitch could save her from that life. He is upset that she lied to him, and she claims that she never lied in her heart.

A Mexican woman passes outside, selling "flores para los muertos." This cracks something in her, and she begins remembering the death that brought that desire, the blood-stained sheets and the closeness of death in Belle Reve and the soldiers from the army camp who would call to her at night.

Mitch tries to embrace Blanche, to get what he'd been missing all summer. She asks him to marry her in that case, but he refuses, saying she isn't clean enough to bring in the house with his mother. She tells him to leave, before she starts shouting fire. He stares at her dumbly and she cries "Fire! Fire!" and he runs off.

Analysis

Scene 9 introduces the more fantastic elements that will heighten the reality of the remainder of the play. As Blanche becomes divorced from reality, so too does the play itself become more figurative and stage-y, wearing its theatrical conventions on its sleeve. Here we have the cries of the flower seller intermingling with Blanche's memories - later it will be the lighting and sound of the rape scene, and the menacing shadows of the finale.

Scene 9 is also Blanche's last attempt at recovering her aristocratic role. The jig is up, and she knows it. But when Mitch arrives she valiantly puts on her game face and resumes her flirtatious manner. Mitch is having none of it, though – he now knows that she is wearing a mask, and he wants to see what's underneath.

The moment when Mitch tears the paper lantern off the lightbulb is a shocking violation, and it mirrors the rape in the succeeding scene. He has penetrated her illusion, forcing his way into the inner sanctuary of her game. It is a harsh act, and Blanche stumbles from it as if struck. Her magic has flown away, and she is left only with hated realism.

But this light of truth is, notably, not drawn from the sun but from an electric bulb – artifice exposing artifice, like throwing a white light on a painted set. She hasn't so much been exposed to reality as to stricter scrutiny, under the terms of a different sort of artifice. But it's enough to break Blanche, and the light melts the last shreds of her façade. From there, she speaks freely, if not quite sanely, of her checkered past and the devastation she has experienced.

Like Stanley, Mitch is only comfortable when he's on the offensive – when Blanche's admission begins, he doesn't know how to respond. Her speech becomes more and more unhinged as it mingles with the cries of the Mexican woman, and Mitch just falls back and listens dumbly. When she has exhausted her story of death and despair, Mitch cannot begin to process what he just heard. Instead, he fumblingly attempts to embrace her, sticking with the "she lied to me, she's just a tramp" line that he came in with, unable to deviate from that script. Blanche is even more alone than before – she bared her soul and her words fell on uncomprehending ears. The light was supposed to allow Mitch to see her for the first time, but instead it blinded him and burned her up. No wonder she screams fire.

Scene 10

Several hours later, Blanche is thoroughly drunk and playing dress-up. She imagines herself addressing her admirers. She catches a glimpse of herself in a mirror and then slams it down violently.

Stanley arrives home, also drunk. The baby won't arrive until morning, so the doctors sent Stanley home for the night. Blanche tells Stanley that she received a telegram from Shep Huntleigh, inviting her to take a cruise of the Caribbean on his yacht. Stanley plays along, for now. He's feeling amiable, and offers Blanche a beer to bury the hatchet, saying it’s a red letter night for them both due to the baby and the oil millionaire.

Stanley changes into his special occasion silk pajamas that he wore on his wedding night. Blanche continues to talk about Shep Huntleigh and how he will be a gentleman, and seeks only her companionship. Beauty fades, she asserts, but intelligence and breeding do not. "How strange I should be called a destitute woman," she cries, "when I have all these treasures locked in my heart." But she has been casting her pearls before swine, she says.

Stanley's amiability begins to fade with this reference to him as swine. Blanche continues to say that Mitch returned after Stanley left, and begged for her forgiveness, but she sent him on his way. Stanley calls her on her bluff, both about Mitch and the telegram. He turns on her, shouting about her lies and tricks. His tone becomes menacing and Blanche runs to the phone to try to call Shep Huntleigh. She is terrified, by Stanley and by shadows.

Stanley comes out of the bathroom and stares at her, grinning. Blanche tries to back away from him, but that just gives him ideas. She smashes a bottle on the table and faces him. He observes that she wants some roughhouse, and he springs at her, forcing her to drop the bottle. She succumbs, and he says that they've "had this date with each other from the beginning," as he carries her to the bed.

Analysis

The director has several big choices to make in staging this scene. The biggest and most problematic is, of course, "was she asking for it?" Today, one cannot write a play in which a character "deserves" to be raped. But Streetcar was first produced in 1947, a very different time, and any production must take into account the gender politics of the play's era.

Certainly Blanche antagonizes Stanley, both throughout the play and in this fatal scene. Williams gives her plenty of chances to escape her fate here – Stanley comes home genial and happy, perfectly willing to forget his conflict with Blanche for the night. He lets it slide when she starts talking about Shep Huntleigh, though he knows it's a lie. For once in the play, Stanley isn't interested in realism – he is basking in the magic of being a new father.

But Blanche pushes him, and it is up to the director and the actors to decide just how far she pushes him. When Stanley re-enters the scene at the end, is he on the prowl and ready to strike, as Blanche suspects? Or is it only Blanche's fear of rape that puts the thought into his mind, only her defensiveness that puts him on the offense? Williams does not provide us with the answer, only with the question.

The other significant ambiguity in this scene is the extent to which Blanche has already lost her mind. This is a decision that has reverberations throughout the play. Is Blanche in control of this illusion she's presenting to the world, as it would seem when she briefly "breaks character" in Scene 6? Or has that illusion infected her brain, and can she no longer actually tell the difference between what's real and what's fantasy?

Over the course of the play, Blanche transitions from the one side to the other, from Scarlett O'Hara hiding callused hands in a gown sewn from drapery, to Norma Desmond finally ready for her close-up. But at what point does she make the switch (and how thoroughly)? In Scene 10, the director and actress must decide whether Blanche is aware that Shep Huntleigh didn't telegram and Mitch did not beg for forgiveness. Was she actually deluded, whether through liquor or encroaching insanity, into believing these stories? Or was she just desperately trying to stay in character, desperately trying to save face? Was she already losing her mind, or was it her rape by Stanley that finally unhinged her?

Who, in sum, is to blame?

Scene 11

Some weeks later, Stanley is hosting another poker game. This time, he is winning.

The conversation in this scene is almost entirely small talk. Stella's baby is sleeping in the other room. Stella tells Eunice that Blanche is bathing, and that she'd been told that they made arrangements for her to rest in the country. She's gotten this mixed up in her mind with Shep Huntleigh.

Blanche emerges briefly and asks Stella to lay out her clothes. Stella admits to Eunice that she doesn't know if she did the right thing, but she "couldn't believe her story and go on living with Stanley." Eunice tells her to not ever believe it, and that life must go on.

Blanche comes out. Over at the poker game, Mitch droops at the sound of her voice, and when Stanley chastises Mitch, Blanche starts at the sound of his name. She begins to realize something is going on, but she puts it out of mind as she continues getting dressed for her trip. She talks about how she hopes she dies of eating an unwashed grape and gets buried at sea.

A doctor and a matron appear, in exaggerated institutional garb. Blanche goes to the door, expecting Shep Huntleigh, and is fearful when it isn't him. She backs into the apartment. Mitch won't look at her. The matron follows her in, and approaches sinisterly. The staging becomes less realistic as lurid shadows play on the walls and voices echo against the Varsouviana. Blanche tries to run away but the matron catches her. Stella tries to stop them but Eunice holds her back. Mitch and Stanley fight, and Mitch collapses in sobs.

The matron pinions Blanche's arms and asks the doctor if she should just a straitjacket. The doctor says only if necessary, and then removes his hat, humanizing him. He addresses Blanche directly and politely, and tells the matron to unhand her. Now calmed, Blanche allows the doctor to help her up and lead her outside. Holding on tight, she says "Whoever you are – I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." They exit.

Stella cries her sister's name as she goes. Stanley approaches his wife uncertainly, and she sobs in his arms. The poker game begins again. Curtain.

Analysis

Almost a coda, this finale is more straightforward than anything in the play. Blanche's artifice has now been entirely stripped away – she is cut down to nothing. The whole cast has gathered to witness her demise, cruelly, a going-away party to which the guest of honor has not been invited.

This scene could easily slip into melodrama, but Williams prevents that by writing only functional and mundane dialog. The scene is packed with small-talk – the real action occurs only in the stage directions. Even Blanche's one speech is mostly meaningless, a bit more of Blanche's poetic babble for everyone to remember her by. The speech is even conscious of its own meaninglessness – she speaks of how she wants to die from eating an unwashed grape, as unheroic and meaningless a death as one can imagine, just a bit more fluff to tide her through to the end.

The real drama doesn't lie with Blanche or Stanley in this scene – their stories are complete. We have only left to see their logical conclusion. Mitch's reactions provide some fresh context - it is clear that he really did care about Blanche, and he is shamed and hurt by what transpires in this scene. He cannot bring himself to look at her, but he also can't bear to see her hurt.

But what is really of interest in the finale is Stella. She is torn between her husband and her sister, and she is very aware of the decision she has to make. If she believes that Stanley raped Blanche, then she would have to leave Stanley. If she believes that Blanche is crazy, then she has to send Blanche away. Stella seems to know, deep down, that Blanche was telling the truth. But it is finally Stella who is forced to choose magic over realism, shadow over light – desire over cemeteries. She chooses Stanley.

And so Blanche is sent off, half aware of what's happening and half willfully believing in the kindness of strangers, and Stella and Stanley are left to start their life together anew.

• Biography of Tennessee Williams
• About A Streetcar Named Desire
• Character List
• Major Themes
• Glossary of Terms
• Short Summary
• Full Summary and Analysis
• Summary and Analysis of Scene 1
• Summary and Analysis of Scene 2
• Summary and Analysis of Scene 3
• Summary and Analysis of Scene 4
• Summary and Analysis of Scene 5
• Summary and Analysis of Scene 6
• Summary and Analysis of Scenes 7 and 8
• Summary and Analysis of Scene 9
• Summary and Analysis of Scene 10
• Summary and Analysis of Scene 11
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