hardships were too much for her. She sought solace or oblivion in the
intimacy of strangers; apparently many intimacies with many strangers, and
a disastrous afiair with a seventeen- year-old student at her high school.
Blanche departed Mississippi in disgrace and arrived in New Orleans with
nowhere else to go. Stanley discovers this sordid account. He tells Mitch
and efiectively ends the budding relationship. For Blanche's birthday,
Stanley presents her with a one-way bus ticket back to Mississippi. And
then, while Stella is in labor at the hospital, Stanley rapes Blanche.
Stella cannot believe the story Blanche tells her about the man she loves.
And Blanche's grasp on reality is otherwise shattered. So, with supreme
remorse, Stella has Blanche committed. In the final scene of the play,
Stella sobs in agony and the rest look on indifierently as a doctor and a
nurse lead Blanche away.
Scene 1 Summary
The scene is the exterior of a corner building on a street called Elysian
Fields, in a poor section of New Orleans with "rafish charm." The building
has two ats: upstairs live Steve and Eunice, downstairs Stanley and Stella.
Voices and the bluesy notes of an old piano emanate from an unseen bar
around the corner. It is early May, evening.
Eunice and a Negro woman are relaxing on the steps of the building when
Stanley and Mitch show up. Stanley hollers for Stella, who comes out onto
the first oor landing. Stanley hurls a package of meat up to her. He and
Mitch are going to meet Steve at the bowling alley; Stella soon follows to
watch them. Eunice and the Negro woman in particular find something
humorously suggestive in the meat-hurling episode.
Soon after Stella leaves, her sister Blanche arrives with a suitcase,
looking with disbelief at a slip of paper in her hand and then at the
building. She is "daintily" dressed and moves tentatively, looking and
apparently feeling out of place in this neighborhood. Eunice assures her
that this is where Stella lives. The Negro woman goes to the bowling alley
to tell Stella of her sister's arrival while Eunice lets Blanche into the
two-room at. Eunice makes small talk. We learn that Blanche is from
Mississippi, that she is a teacher, that her family estate is called Belle
Reve. Blanche finally asks to be left alone.
Eunice, somewhat offended, leaves to help fetch Stella. Blanche, trying to
control her discomfort, nerves, and whatever else, spies a bottle of
whiskey and downs a shot.
Stella returns. The women embrace, and Blanche talks feverishly, nearly
hysterical. Blanche is clearly critical of the physical and social setting
in which Stella lives. She tries to check her criticism, but the reunion
begins on a tense and probably familiar note. Blanche tells Stella that she
has been given a leave of absence from school due to her nerves, and that
is why she is here in the middle of the term. She wants Stella to tell her
how she looks, and in return comments on Stella's plumpness. She fusses
over Stella, is surprised to learn Stella has no maid, takes another drink,
worries about the privacy and decency of her staying in the apartment when
Stella and Stanley are in the next room with no door, and worries whether
Stanley will like her.
Stella warns Blanche that Stanley is very difierent from the men with whom
Blanche is familiar back home. She is quite clearly deeply in love with
him. In an outburst that builds to a crescendo of hysteria, Blanche reveals
that she has lost Belle Reve and recounts how she sufiered through the
agonizingly slow deaths of their parents and relatives{all while, according
to Blanche, Stella was in bed with her "Polack." Stella finally cuts her
off, then leaves the room, crying. Blanche begins to apologize, but the men
are returning.
They discuss plans for tomorrow's poker night, then break up. Stanley
enters the apartment and sizes Blanche up. The two make small talk, with
Stanley in the lead and Blanche reacting. Stanley asks what happened to
Blanche's marriage. Blanche replies haltingly that the "boy" died. She sits
down and declares that she feels ill.
Scene 2 Summary
Six o'clock the following day. Blanche is taking a bath. Stella tells
Stanley to be kind to Blanche because she has undergone the ordeal of
losing Belle Reve (the family estate). Stanley is more interested in what
happened to the proceeds of the supposed sale. He thinks Stella has been
swindled out of her rightful share, which means that he has been swindled.
Angrily he pulls all of Blanche's belongings out of her trunk, looking for
a bill of sale. To him, Blanche's somewhat tawdry clothing and rhinestone
jewelry look like finery{all that remains of the estate's value. Enraged at
Stanley's actions, Stella storms out onto the porch.
Blanche finishes her bath. She sends Stella out to the drug store to buy a
soda while she and Stanley have their discussion. With her blend of
irtation, nonsense, sincerity, and desperation, Blanche manages to disarm
Stanley and convince him that no fraud has been perpetrated against anyone.
Blanche is horrified when Stanley opens and begins to read the old letters
and love poems from her husband. Stanley lets slip that Stella is going to
have a baby. Stella returns from the drugstore and some of the men arrive
for their poker game. Exhilarated by the news of Stella's pregnancy and by
her own handling of the situation with Stanley, Blanche follows Stella for
their girls' night out.
Scene 3 Summary
It's two-thirty a.m. the same night. Steve, Pablo, Mitch, and Stanley are
playing poker in the Kowalski's kitchen. Their patter goes back and forth,
heavy with testosterone. Stella and Blanche return and Stella makes in-
troductions. Blanche immediately determines something "superior to the
others" in Mitch; Mitch's awkwardness seems to indicate an attraction on
his part, as well.
Stella and Blanche share a sisterly chat in the back room while the poker
game continues. Stanley, drunk, hollers at them to be quiet. Blanche turns
on the radio, which again rouses Stanley's ire. The other men enjoy the
rhumba, but Stanley springs up and shuts off the radio. He and Blanche
stare each other down. Mitch skips the next hand and goes to the bathroom.
Waiting for Stella to finish, he and Blanche talk. Blanche is a little
drunk, too. They discuss Mitch's sick mother, the sincerity of sick and
sorrowful people, and the inscription on Mitch's cigarette case. Blanche
claims that she is actually younger than Stella. She asks Mitch to put a
Chinese lantern she has bought over the naked bulb. As they talk Stanley is
growing more annoyed at Mitch's absence. Stella leaves the bathroom and
Blanche impulsively turns the radio back on. Stanley leaps up, rushes to
the radio, and hurls it out the window.
Stella yells at Stanley and he begins to beat her. The men pull him off.
Blanche takes Stella and some clothes to Eunice's apartment upstairs.
Stanley goes limp and seems confused, but when the men try to force him
into the shower to sober him up he fights them off. They grab their
winnings and leave.
Stanley stumbles out of the bathroom, calling for Stella. He phones
upstairs, then phones again, before hurling the phone to the oor. Half-
dressed he stumbles out to the street and calls for her again and again:
"STELL- LAHHHHH!" Eunice gives him a piece of her mind, but to no avail.
Finally, Stella slips out of the apartment and down to where Stanley is.
They stare at each other and then rush together with "animal moans." He
falls to his knees, caresses her face and belly, then lifts her up and
carries her into their at.
Blanche emerges from Eunice's at, looking for Stella. She stops short at
the entrance to the downstairs at. Mitch returns and tells her not to
worry, that the two are crazy about each other. He offers her a cigarette.
She thanks him for his kindness.
Scene 4 Summary
Early the next morning, Stella lies serenely in the bedroom, her face
aglow. Blanche, who has not slept, enters the apartment. She demands to
know how Stella could go back and spend the night with Stanley after what
he did to her. Stella feels Blanche is making a big issue out of nothing.
Yet Blanche goes on about how she must figure out a way to get them both
out of this situation, how she recently ran into an old friend who struck
it rich in oil, and perhaps he would be able to help them. Stella pays
little attention to what Blanche says; she has no desire to leave. She says
that Blanche merely saw Stanley at his worst. Blanche feels she saw at his
most characteristic{and this is what terrifies her.
Blanche simply cannot understand how a woman raised in Belle Reve could
choose to live her life with a man who has "not one particle" of a
gentleman in him, about whom there is "something downright{bestial..."
Stella's reply is that "there are things that happen between a man and a
woman in the dark{that sort of make everything else seem{unimportant." This
is just desire, says Blanche, and not a basis for marriage.
A train approaches, and while it roars past Stanley enters the at unheard.
Not knowing that Stanley is listening, Blanche holds nothing back.
She describes him as common, an animal, ape-like, a primitive brute. Stella
listens coldly. Under cover of another passing train, Stanley slips out of
the apartment, then enters it noisily. Stella runs to Stanley and embraces
him fiercely. Stanley grins at Blanche.
Scene 5 Summary
It is mid-August. Stella and Blanche are in the bedroom. Blanche finishes
writing an utterly fabricated letter to the old friend she recently ran
into, then bursts into laughter. She reads from the letter to Stella,
breaking off when the noise of Steve and Eunice's fighting upstairs grows
too loud. Eunice storms off to a bar around the corner. Nursing a bruise on
his forehead, Steve follows her. Stanley enters the apartment in full
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