Since 1945: Short Answer Quiz

Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire


  1. In Scene Two, Stanley mentions the “Napoleonic Code” repeatedly, in reference to his “rights” to his wife’s property; in Scene Eight, he quotes the Louisiana governor and demagogue Huey Long “‘Every Man is a King!’ And I am the king around here, so don’t forget it!” Both of these references are specific to Louisiana and a French Catholic background alien to both Stella and Blanche. What do his political heroes say about Stanley, and how does Williams use these references to characterize him?

  1. In Scene Four, Blanche lays out her objections to Stanley: “There’s something downright—bestial—about him!...He acts like an animal, has an animal’s habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one! There’s even something—sub-human—something not quite to the stage of humanity yet! Yes, something—ape-like about him, like one of the 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 meat home from the kill in the jungle!...Maybe he’ll strike you or maybe he’ll grunt and kiss you!” (2214 [full ed.] 2364 [shorter ed.]). Remember that the opening scene, in which Stanley throws a packet of meat to Stella, occurs before Blanche comes on stage, so she can’t be referring to that moment, and then provide an explanation of the multiple ironies of this passage.

  1. “I never was hard or self-sufficient enough. 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—paper lantern over the light…It isn’t enough to be soft. You’ve got to be soft and attractive. And I—I’m fading now! I don’t know how much longer I can turn the trick” (2217 [full ed.] 2367 [shorter ed.]). Given what you know of the ending, what is Blanche referring to by “turn the trick”? What is the significance of the “paper lantern” in this passage?

  1. “I can smell the sea air. The rest of my time I’m going to spend on the sea. And when I die, I’m going to die on the sea. You know what I shall die of [she plucks a grape]. I shall die of eating an unwashed grape one day out on the ocean. I will die—with my hand in the hand of some nice-looking ship’s doctor, a very young one with a small blond moustache and a big silver watch. ‘Poor lady,’ they’ll say, ‘the quinine did her no good. That unwashed grape has transported her soul to heaven’… And I’ll be buried at sea sewn up in a clean white sack and dropped overboard—at noon—in the blaze of summer—and into an ocean as blue as [chimes again] my first lover’s eyes!” (2395 [full ed.] 2245 [shorter ed.]). This is Blanche’s last substantial soliloquy, and while some of it (like the grape) may be spontaneous, much of it seems rehearsed, as if this is not the first time Blanche has thought romantically of her death. Provide a reading of this passage, in which you account for the symbolism of the white sack and the blue sea, and what Blanche’s motive might be in speaking her death wish aloud.



First Name:
Last Name:
Your Email Address:
Your Professor's Email Address: