I also think it is very funny to see how much you can pick up about Blanche’s character through her dialogue and constant quoting of poems/Biblical references/etc. It shows her desire to be taken seriously in a world run by men, a patriarchal society, her desire to constantly appear smart shows how much she wishes to be thought of as bright and how much she wishes to be desired. We can infer alot about her loneliness through this too. The fact that she is always trying to prove her worth and justify her actions shows how importance appearance is to her and how much she wishes to be accepted and loved.
She is a fascinating character because her dialogue really reveals a lot of sadness. When we understand her character and take into perspective her growth as a character throughout the play we come to realize that she is very superficial and concerned with appearance. We can see in her dialogue that she is very concerned with the social standards of what it means to “be a lady” and have men interested in her. Stanley constantly questions her as a character and tries to get her to see past her own superficiality and “bullshit”
There is a lot we can learn about Stanley Kowalski through his dialogue too. The fact that he uses such blunt sentences so often and keeps his thoughts generally to the point shows us his masculinity and his desire to be “real” and never put on fronts. The fact that he constantly justifies his actions too through his moral stance “The Napoleonic Code” shows us that he is very rigid and has his own set of standards that he lives by regardless of how it makes others feel. He is unwavering and consistent. He weighs all thoughts and actions on his moral stance and is very much a stereotypical “tough guy.”
When I saw this performed (very well might I add with Cate Blanchett) it was interesting to see how much of Stanley’s power as a character is revealed in his dialogue, his sentences FEEL powerful and his way of addressing Blanche, Stella, and the guys feels consistently blunt, to the point, and masculine. I totally agree with Nick about Stanley’s first scene, it is interesting how much we learn about him in that first scene simply through the fact that he says no more than two word sentences the whole time.
The separation between Blanche’s southern aristocrat vibe and Stanley’s Tough Pollack vibe comes through the use of slang and grammar in the play. Blanche clearly uses her allusions to poetry and the Bible as a means of showing herself as a “classy intellectual person.” (Ie when she speaks of Poe, Mr. Edgar Allen Poe and also the fact that she keeps her grammar in check constantly and never lets herself “sound stupid”). Stanley CONSTANTLY curses and uses bad grammar (“What’s with all the rest of them papers” and “Get y’r ass off the table Mitch”). This separation of characters is very interesting to discover through the dialogue.