Month: October 2010

I divided the quotes into different categories that I thought are core ideas in the text, in order to make some kind of sense out of them.IdeasGenderStanley "Have you ever heard of the Napoleonic code?"Blanche "You men with your big clumsy fingers."Stanley "I've never met a woman that didn't know if she was good-looking or not without being told, and some of them give themselves credit for more than they've got."Stanley "Some men are took in by this Hollywood glamor stuff and some men are not."Mitch "Poker should not be played in a house with women."Eunice "you can't beat a woman and' then call €˜er back!"Stella "When men are drinking and playing poker anything can happen."Blanche "A man like that is someone to go out with – once – twice – three times when the devil is in you."Blanche "And men don't want anything they get too easy. But on the other hand men lose interest quickly. Especially when the girl is over €” thirty. They think a girl over thirty ought to €” the vulgar term is €” "put out."” (91)Blanche "The one (law of nature) that says the lady must entertain the gentleman €”  or no dice!" (97)Mitch "A man with a heavy build has got to be careful of what he puts on him so he don't look too clumsy." (101)Stanley "Hughey Long €˜Every Man is a King'" (124)Blanche "A cultivated woman, a woman of intelligence and breeding, can enrich a man's life €” immeasureably!" (145)Eunice "I always did say that men are callous things with no feelings, but this does beat anything. Making pigs of yourselves." (153)SexBlanche "but the only way to live with such a man is to – go to bed with him!" (77)Stella "But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark — that sort of make everything else seem – unimportant." (78)PokerStella "When men are drinking and playing poker anything can happen." (71)Stanley "nothing belongs on a poker table but cards, chips and whiskey." (48)Mitch "Poker should not be played in a house with women." (63)LifeBlanche "And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. Funerals are quiet, but deaths – not always." (25)Blanche "Death is expensive, Ms. Stella." (26)Blanche "There is so much – so much confusion in the world." (68)Stella "People have got to tolerate each other's habits, I guess." (73)Eunice "No matter what happens, you've got to keep on going." (154)Stanley "To hold front position in this rat-race you've got to believe you are lucky." (152)Blanche "But, honey, you know know as well as I do that a single girl, a girl alone in the world, has got to keep afirm hold on her emotions or she'll be lost!" (98)

Pg. 85 Steve "That rutting hunk!"Pg. 86 Blanche “Aries people are forceul and dynamic. They dote on noise! They love to bang things around!” Blanche: Goat, VirgoPg. 89 Blanche: “When people are soft — soft people have got to shimmer and glow — they’ve got to put on soft colors,the colors of butterfly wings, and put a — papaer lantern over the light… It isn’t enough to be soft. You’ve got to besoft and attractive.Pg. 91 Blanche “And men don’t want anything they get too easy. But on ther other hand me lose interest quickly. Especiallywhen the girl is over — thirty. They think a girl over thirty ought to — the vulgar term is — “put out.””Pg. 95 Blanche “Prince out of the Arabian Nights” Blanche “honey lamb” Blanche “Rosen Kavalier”Pg. 96 Blanche “Even the hot tamale man has deserted the streetm and he hags on till the end.”Pg. 97 Blanche “The one (law of nature) that says the lady ust entertain the gentleman —  or no dice!” Blanche “I’m looking for the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters, but these girls are not out tonight. Oh, yes they are,there they are! God bless them! All in a bunch going home from their little bridge party.”Pg. 98 Blanche “But, honey, you know know as well as I do that a single girl, a girl alone in the world, has got to keep afirm hold on her emotions or she’ll be lost!”Pg. 99 Blanche “We are going to pretend that we are sitting in a little artists’ cafe on the Left Bank in Paris.”Pg. 101 Mitch “A man with a heavy build has got to be careful of what he puts on him so he don’t look too clumsy.”Pg. 106 Blanche “THat sort of commonness is unnecessary.”Pg. 108 Blanche “It was like you suddenly turned a blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow, that’show it struck the world of me.”Pg. 109 Blanche “And then the searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one momentsince has there been any light that;s stronger than this — kitchen — candle…”Pg. 110 Blanche “Sometimes — there’s God —  so quickly!”Pg. 112 Stanley “But now the cat’s out o the bag!”Pg. 113 Stanley “Same canary-bird, huh!” Stanley “Blanche is no lily”Pg. 114 Blanche “It’s a Barnum and Bailey wold, Just as phoney as it can be– But it wouldn’t be make-believe If you believed in me!” Blanche “Without your love, It’s a honky-tonk parade! Without your love, It’s a melody played In a penny arcade.”Pg. 115 Stanley “Out-of-bounds.”Pg. 119 Stanley “but he’s not going to jump in a tank with a school of sharks.”Pg. 123 Blanche “Parot”Pg. 124 Stanley “Hughey Long ‘Every Man is a King'”Pg. 126 Blanche “Oh, I hope candles are going to glow in his life and I hope that his eyes are going be like candles, liketwo blue candles lighted in a white cake!” Stanley “But what I am is one hudnred percent American, born and raised in the greatest country on earth and proudas hell of it, so don’t ever call me a Polack.”Pg. 133 Mitch “He says you been lapping it up all summer like a wild-cat.”Pg. 136 Blanche “I stayed at a hotel called The Tarantula Arms!”Pg. 137 Blanche “My youth was suddenly gone up the water-sput” Blanche “acleft in the rock of the world that I could hide in!” Blanche “Kiefaber, Stanley and Shaw have tied an old tin can to the tail of the kite.”Pg. 138 Blanche “Crumble and fade and — regrets — recriminations… ‘If you’d done this, it wouldn’t’ve cost me that!'” Blanche “Legacies! Huh.. And other things such as bloodstained pillow-slips — ‘Her linen needs changing’ — ‘YesMother. But couldn’t we get a colored girl to do it?’ No, we couldn’t of course. Everything gone but the –” Blanche “Death — I used to sit here and she used to sit over there and death was as close as you are… We didn’tdare eveb adnut we had ever heard of it!” Blanche “The opposite is desire.”Pg. 141 Blanche “How about taking a swim, a moonlight swim at the old rock-quarry? If anyone’s sober enough to drive a car!Ha-ha! Best way in the world to stop your head buzzing! Only you’ve got to be careful to dive where the deep pool is — ifyou hit a rock and you don’t come up till tomorrow…”Pg. 143 Blanche “It came like a bolt from the blue!”Pg. 144 Stanley “Shall we bury te hatchet and make it a loving-cup?”Pg. 145 Blanche “Having great wealth sometimes makes people lonely!” Blanche “A cultivated woman, a woman of intelligence and breeding, can enrich a man’s life — immeasureably!” Blanche “Physical beauty is passing. A transitory possession, But beauty of the mind and richness of the spirit andtendernesss of the heart — and I have all of those things — aren’t taken away!”Pg. 146 Blanche “Deliberate cruelty is not forgiveable.”Pg. 147 Stanley “Egypt and Queen of Nile.”Pg. 152 Stanley “Luck is believing you’re lucky.” Stanley “To hold front position in this rat-race you’ve got to believe you are lucky.”Pg. 153 Eunice “I always did say that men are callous things with no feelings, but this does beat anything. Making pigs ofyourselves.”Pg. 154 Eunice “No matter what happens, you’ve got to keep on going.”Pg. 158 Blanche “These cathedral bells —  they’re the only clean thing in the Quarter.” Blanche “I shall die of eating an unwashed grape on day out on the ocean.” Blanche “And I’ll be buried at sea sewn up in a clean white sack and dropped overboard —  at noon — in the blazeof summer — and into and ocean as blue as my first lovers’ eyes!”Pg. 166 Steve “This game is seven-card stud.”

That’s a great compilation of quotations, I only have a few to add for consideration:

“Is he so different?” “Yes.  A different species.”  (Blanche and Stella referring to Stanley)

“The Kowalskis and the DuBoises have different notions.”  (Stanley to Stella)

“A woman’s charm is fifty percent illusion” (Blanche to Stanley)

“Physical beauty is passing.  A transitory possession.”  (Blanche to Stanley)

“Whoever you are-I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”  (Blanche at the play’s end)

This is an unorganized list of the ideas and metaphors that I found in the text. The page numbers are according to my copy, so they may differ.Pg. 16Blanche "Stella for Star!"Pg. 25Blanche "But had to be burned like rubbish!"Blanche "And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. Funerals are quiet, but deaths – not always."Pg. 26Blanche "Death is expensive, Ms. Stella."Blanche "The Grim Reaper had put up his tent on our door step! €¦Stella. Belle Reve was his headquarters!"Pg. 29Stanley "Some people rarely touch it, but it touches them often."Pg. 34Stanley "Let's have a gander at the bill of sale."Pg. 35Stanley "Have you ever heard of the Napoleonic code?"Stanely "It looks to me like you have been swindled, baby, and when you're swindled under the Napoleonic code I'm swindled too. And I don't like to be swindled."Pg. 36Stanley "Look at these feathers and furs that she come here to preen herself in!"Pg. 37"a fist-full of costume jewelery"Stanley "And diamonds! A crown for an empress!"Pg. 39Blanche "You men with your big clumsy fingers."Pg. 40Stanley "I've never met a woman that didn't know if she was good-looking or not without being told, and some of them give themselves credit for more than they've got."Pg. 41Stanley "That shut her up like a clam."Stanley "Some men are took in by this Hollywood glamor stuff and some men are not."Stanley "Lay€¦ her cards on the table."Pg. 45Blanche "our improvident grandfathers and father and uncles and borthers exchanged the land for their epic focnications – to put it plainly!"Pg. 47Blanche "The blind are leading the blind!"Vendor "Red-hot!"Pg. 48Pablo "One-eyed Jacks are wild."Stanley "nothing belongs on a poker table but cards, chips and whiskey."Pg. 50Steve (Old farmer, hen and rooster joke.)Pg. 51Stella "You are as fresh as a daisy."Blanche "One that's been picked a few days."Pg. 53Blanche "Is he a wolf?"Pg. 54Blanche "I'm sorry but I haven't noticed the stamp of genius even on Stanley's forehead."Pg. 55Stanley "You hens cut out that conversation in there."Pg. 56Stanley "Some people get ants when they win."Pg. 57Stanley "This game is Spt in the Ocean."Blanche "The Little Boys' room is busy right now."Pg. 59Blanche "Sick people have such deep, sincere attachments."Blanche "Sorrow makes for sincerity."Blanche "The little there is belongs to people who have experienced some sorrow."Pg. 60Blanche "like an orchard in Spring."Blanche "I can't stand a naked light bulb any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action."Pg. 62Blanche "I attempt to install a bunch of bobby-soxers and drug-store Romeos with reverence for Hawthorne and Whitman and Poe."(Like a dancing bear)Pg. 63Mitch "Poker should not be played in a house with women."Pg. 66Eunice "you can't beat a woman and' then call €˜er back!"Eunice "You whelp of a Polack, you!"Pg. 68Blanche "There is so much – so much confusion in the world."Pg. 69(There is a confusion of street cries like a charcoal chant.)Pg. 71Stella "When men are drinking and playing poker anything can happen."Stella "it's always a powder-keg."Stella "He was as good as a lamb"Pg. 73Stella "People have got to tolerate each other's habits, I guess."Pg. 76Blanche "You never get anywhere with direct appeals."Pg. 77Blanche "but the only way to live with such a man is to – go to bed with him!"Pg. 78Stella "But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark — that sort of make everything else seem – unimportant."Pg. 79Blanche "The name of the rattle-trap street-car that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another€¦"Blanche "A man like that is someone to go out with – once – twice – three times when the devil is in you."Pg. 80Blanche "Yes, something —  ape-like about him, like one of those pictures I've seen in – anthropological studies! Thousands and thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is – Stanley Kowalski – survivor of the stone age! Bearing the raw meant home from the kill in the jungle."Blanche "Night falls and other apes gather! There in front of the cave, all grunting like him, and swilling and gnawing and hulking! His poker night! – you call it – this party of apes! Somebody growls€”some creature snatches at something – the fight is on!""Maybe we are a long way from being made in God's image, but Stela – my sister – there as been some progress since then! Such things as art – as poetry and music €” such kinds of new light have come into the world since then! In some kinds of people some tenderer feelings have had some little beginning!that we have got to make grow! And cling to, and hold as our flag! In this dark march toward hatever it is we're approaching€¦ Don't – don't hang back with the brutes. "

Multiple meanings of the title, here are a few:  1) Literally, Desire is the name of the streetcar route that Blanche takes to get to her sister’s house.  2)  Symbolically, Blanche has let desire take over her life, losing her self-control by hopping on “a streetcar named desire” and enjoying the ride, though she has no idea where it will take her.  3) The fact that it is a streetcar and not a more upscale mode of transportation indicates that even though Blanche pretends to be cultured and rich, she has sunk to poverty and dependence on others because of her desire.