Scene 11
Some weeks later, Stanley is hosting another poker game in his kitchen with his poker buddies. This time, he is winning. The stage directions describe as having the same ghastly atmosphere as on the poker night when Stanley beat Stella. During this Blanche is taking a bath. Stella cries while packing Blanche’s belongings. Eunice comes downstairs and enters the apartment. Stanley boasts about his own ability to survive and win out against others thanks to his spectacular confidence, and Mitch stammers incoherently in angry disbelief.
Stella asks Eunice how her baby is, and Eunice says the baby is asleep. Eunice asks about Blanche, and Stella says they have arranged for Blanche to spend some time resting in the country, but Blanche thinks she is going to travel with Shep Huntleigh. Blanche emerges from the bathroom briefly, asking Stella to tell any callers that she’ll phone them back shortly. She requests that Stella find her yellow silk suit and its accessories, immediately then returning to the bathroom( Her place of comfort both physically and mentally as she is away from everyone).
Stella tells Eunice that she isn’t certain she did the right thing, but that there is no way she could believe Blanche’s story about the rape and continue to live with Stanley. Eunice comforts Stella, saying she had no choice but to doubt Blanche’s story and continue life as usual with Stanley.
Blanche opens the bathroom door hesitantly, checking to make sure that the men playing poker won’t be able to see her as she comes out. She emerges to the strains of the Varsouviana polka. Stella and Eunice agree to go along with Blanche’s behaviour. Blanche asks if Shep Huntleigh has called, and Stella answers, ‘not yet.’
Blanche comes out. Over at poker table, the sound of Blanche’s voice sends Mitch into deep thought and partial visible misery, until Stanley snaps him out of it. The sound of Stanley’s voice from the kitchen stuns Blanche. She remains still for a few moments, mouthing Stanley’s name, then with a rising hysteria demands to know what is going on, which begins to highlight the extensive damage Stanley has done to Blanche. Stella and Eunice calm her down, and the men restrain Stanley from interfering.
The other women convince her to wait. They offer her grapes, and she worries about whether they have been washed. They say she shouldn’t go out, saying she should wait until the game is over. Blanche begins to imagine and hopes that she will die at sea from eating a dirty grape with a handsome young ship’s doctor at her side
The doorbell rings, and Blanche waits, hoping that the caller is Shep Huntleigh. In reality, a doctor and Matron ( nurse ) are at the door. Eunice returns and announces that someone is calling for Blanche, saying she thinks it might be Shep. The Varsouviana begins to play again.
When Eunice mentions that a lady accompanies Blanche’s caller, Blanche grows more nervous. She frets again about walking in front of the poker players, but Stella accompanies her. The poker players stand uncomfortably as Blanche passes, except for Mitch, who refuses to look at her. When Blanche steps out onto the porch and sees the doctor, not Shep Huntleigh. She becomes viably shaken and anxious.
Inside, Stanley stands up to block Blanche’s way to the bedroom. Blanche rushes around him, claiming she has forgotten something. The doctor sends the Matron in after Blanche. In stage whispers, Stanley advises the doctor to go in, and the doctor tells the Matron to grab Blanche. 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 and the jungle cries. Blanche tries to run away but the matron catches her.
As the Matron speaks to Blanche, her voice echoes eerily. Blanche panics and asks to be left alone. Stanley says the only thing Blanche could have possibly forgotten is her paper lantern, which he tears from the lightbulb and hands to her. As Blanche continues to resist.
Stella runs onto the porch, and Eunice goes to comfort her. Stella begs Eunice to stop the group from hurting Blanche, but Eunice won’t let Stella go. She tells Stella that she has made the right decision. The men move toward the bedroom, and Stanley blocks Mitch from entering to talk to Blanche for the last time. Mitch becomes angry and for the first time stands up to Stanley and goes to strike him, Stanley pushes him back with ease, and Mitch collapses in tears at the table.
The doctor takes off his hat humanising himself and approaches Blanche gently. He addresses Blanche directly and politely, and tells the Matron to unhand her. The Matron releases Blanche upon the request, and the Doctor says that a straitjacket won’t be necessary. The Doctor leads Blanche out of the bedroom. ‘Whoever you are,’ Blanche says, ‘I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.’
The Doctor leads Blanche through the kitchen as the poker players look on. Stella, crouched on the porch in agony, calls out her sister’s name as she passes by. Blanche allows herself to be led onward and chooses to not turn to look at Stella. The doctor, the Matron, and Blanche turn the corner and disappear.
Eunice tries to calm Stella , and brings the baby to Stella and thrusts it into her arms, then goes to the kitchen to join the men. Stanley goes out onto the porch and over to Stella, who sobs while holding her child. Stanley comforts Stella with loving words and begins to caress her ,this signifies life returning as if Blanche had never visited. The play ends in the kitchen, with Steve dealing a new hand as if nothing has happened.
Plot Summary
Blanche DuBois, a schoolteacher from Laurel, Mississippi, arrives at the New Orleans apartment of her sister, Stella Kowalski. Despite the fact that Blanche seems to have fallen out of close contact with Stella, she intends to stay at Stella’s apartment for an unspecified but likely lengthy period of time, given the large trunk she has with her. Blanche tells Stella that she lost Belle Reve, their ancestral home, following the death of all their remaining relatives. She also mentions that she has been given a leave of absence from her teaching position because of her bad nerves.
Though Blanche does not seem to have enough money to afford a hotel, she is disdainful of the cramped quarters of the Kowalskis’ two-room apartment and of the apartment’s location in a noisy, diverse, working-class neighbourhood. Blanche’s social condescension wins her the instant dislike of Stella’s husband, an auto-parts supply man of Polish descent named Stanley Kowalski. It is clear that Stella was happy to leave behind her the social pretensions of her background in exchange for the sexual gratification she gets from her husband; she even is pregnant with his baby. Stanley immediately distrusts Blanche to the extent that he suspects her of having cheated Stella out of her share of the family inheritance. In the process of defending herself to Stanley, Blanche reveals that Belle Reve was lost due to a foreclosed mortgage, a disclosure that signifies the dire nature of Blanche’s financial circumstances. Blanche’s heavy drinking, which she attempts to conceal from her sister and brother-in-law, is another sign that all is not well with Blanche.
The unhappiness that accompanies the animal magnetism of Stella and Stanley’s marriage reveals itself when Stanley hosts a drunken poker game with his male friends at the apartment. Blanche gets under Stanley’s skin, especially when she starts to win the affections of his close friend Mitch. After Mitch has been absent for a while, speaking with Blanche in the bedroom, Stanley erupts, storms into the bedroom, and throws the radio out of the window. When Stella yells at Stanley and defends Blanche, Stanley beats her. The men pull him off, the poker game breaks up, and Blanche and Stella escape to their upstairs neighbour Eunice’s apartment. A short while later, Stanley is remorseful and cries up to Stella to forgive him. To Blanche’s alarm, Stella returns to Stanley and embraces him passionately. Mitch meets Blanche outside of the Kowalski flat and comforts her in her distress.
The next day, Blanche tries to convince Stella to leave Stanley for a better man whose social status equals Stella’s. Blanche suggests that she and Stella contact a millionaire named Shep Huntleigh for help escaping from New Orleans; when Stella laughs at her, Blanche reveals that she is completely broke. Stanley walks in as Blanche is making fun of him and secretly overhears Blanche and Stella’s conversation. Later, he threatens Blanche with hints that he has heard rumours of her disreputable past. She is visibly dismayed.
While Blanche is alone in the apartment one evening, waiting for Mitch to pick her up for a date, a teenage boy comes by to collect money for the newspaper. Blanche doesn’t have any money for him, but she hits on him and gives him a lustful kiss. Soon after the boy departs, Mitch arrives, and they go on their date. When Blanche returns, she is exhausted and clearly has been uneasy for the entire night about the rumours Stanley mentioned earlier. In a surprisingly sincere heart-to-heart discussion with Mitch, Blanche reveals the greatest tragedy of her past. Years ago, her young husband committed suicide after she discovered and chastised him for his homosexuality. Mitch describes his own loss of a former love, and he tells Blanche that they need each other.
When the next scene begins, about one month has passed. It is the afternoon of Blanche’s birthday. Stella is preparing a dinner for Blanche, Mitch, Stanley, and herself, when Stanley comes in to tell her that he has learned news of Blanche’s sordid past. He says that after losing the DuBois mansion, Blanche moved into a fleabag motel from which she was eventually evicted because of her numerous sexual liaisons. Also, she was fired from her job as a schoolteacher because the principal discovered that she was having an affair with a teenage student. Stella is horrified to learn that Stanley has told Mitch these stories about Blanche.
The birthday dinner comes and goes, but Mitch never arrives. Stanley indicates to Blanche that he is aware of her past. For a birthday present, he gives her a one-way bus ticket back to Laurel. Stanley’s cruelty so disturbs Stella that it appears the Kowalski household is about to break up, but the onset of Stella’s labour prevents the imminent fight.
Several hours later, Blanche, drunk, sits alone in the apartment. Mitch, also drunk, arrives and repeats all he’s learned from Stanley. Eventually Blanche confesses that the stories are true, but she also reveals the need for human affection she felt after her husband’s death. Mitch tells Blanche that he can never marry her, saying she isn’t fit to live in the same house as his mother. Having learned that Blanche is not the chaste lady she pretended to be, Mitch tries to have sex with Blanche, but she forces him to leave by yelling “Fire!” to attract the attention of passers-by outside.
Later, Stanley returns from the hospital to find Blanche even more drunk. She tells him that she will soon be leaving New Orleans with her former suitor Shep Huntleigh, who is now a millionaire. Stanley knows that Blanche’s story is entirely in her imagination, but he is so happy about his baby that he proposes they each celebrate their good fortune. Blanche spurns Stanley, and things grow contentious. When she tries to step past him, he refuses to move out of her way. Blanche becomes terrified to the point that she smashes a bottle on the table and threatens to smash Stanley in the face. Stanley grabs her arm and says that it’s time for the “date” they’ve had set up since Blanche’s arrival. Blanche resists, but Stanley uses his physical strength to overcome her, and he carries her to bed. The pulsing music indicates that Stanley rapes Blanche.
The next scene takes place weeks later, as Stella and her neighbour Eunice pack Blanche’s bags. Blanche is in the bath, and Stanley plays poker with his buddies in the front room. A doctor will arrive soon to take Blanche to an insane asylum, but Blanche believes she is leaving to join her millionaire. Stella confesses to Eunice that she simply cannot allow herself to believe Blanche’s assertion that Stanley raped her. When Blanche emerges from the bathroom, her deluded talk makes it clear that she has lost her grip on reality.
The doctor arrives with a nurse, and Blanche initially panics and struggles against them when they try to take her away. Stanley and his friends fight to subdue Blanche, while Eunice holds Stella back to keep her from interfering. Mitch begins to cry. Finally, the doctor approaches Blanche in a gentle manner and convinces her to leave with him. She allows him to lead her away and does not look back or say goodbye as she goes. Stella sobs with her child in her arms, and Stanley comforts her with loving words and caresses.
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