EXTRACT SCENE 5:
How does Williams make this a powerful moment in the play?
Interrogative tone/ questions - panic & anxiety about the past
Stage directions - emotional turbulence and instability
Exclamation and repetition - loneliness and despair
Symbolism and Metaphors - Blanche’s use of illusion to deal with sorrow
Stella’s calm tone and actions contrasts with Blanche’s tumultuous emotions
BLANCHE:
Stella! What have you heard about me?
STELLA:
Huh?
BLANCHE:
What have people been telling you about me?
STELLA:
Telling?
BLANCHE:
You haven't heard any--unkind--gossip about me?
STELLA:
Why, no, Blanche, of course not!
BLANCHE:
Honey, there was--a good deal of talk in Laurel.
STELLA:
About you, Blanche?
BLANCHE:
I wasn't so good the last two years or so, after Belle Reve had started to slip through my
fingers.
, STELLA:
All of us do things we--
BLANCHE:
I never was hard or sell-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.
[The afternoon has faded to dusk. Stella goes into the bedroom and turns on the light under
the paper lantern. She holds a bottled soft drink in her hand.]
BLANCHE:
Have you been listening to me?
STELLA:
I don't listen to you when you are being morbid!
[She advances with the bottled coke.]
BLANCHE [with abrupt change to gaiety]:
Is that coke for me?
STELLA:
Not for anyone else!
BLANCHE:
Why, you precious thing, you! Is it just coke?
STELLA [turning]:
You mean you want a shot in it!
BLANCHE:
Well, honey, a shot never does a coke any harm! Let me! You mustn't wait on me!
How does Williams make this a powerful moment in the play?
Interrogative tone/ questions - panic & anxiety about the past
Stage directions - emotional turbulence and instability
Exclamation and repetition - loneliness and despair
Symbolism and Metaphors - Blanche’s use of illusion to deal with sorrow
Stella’s calm tone and actions contrasts with Blanche’s tumultuous emotions
BLANCHE:
Stella! What have you heard about me?
STELLA:
Huh?
BLANCHE:
What have people been telling you about me?
STELLA:
Telling?
BLANCHE:
You haven't heard any--unkind--gossip about me?
STELLA:
Why, no, Blanche, of course not!
BLANCHE:
Honey, there was--a good deal of talk in Laurel.
STELLA:
About you, Blanche?
BLANCHE:
I wasn't so good the last two years or so, after Belle Reve had started to slip through my
fingers.
, STELLA:
All of us do things we--
BLANCHE:
I never was hard or sell-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.
[The afternoon has faded to dusk. Stella goes into the bedroom and turns on the light under
the paper lantern. She holds a bottled soft drink in her hand.]
BLANCHE:
Have you been listening to me?
STELLA:
I don't listen to you when you are being morbid!
[She advances with the bottled coke.]
BLANCHE [with abrupt change to gaiety]:
Is that coke for me?
STELLA:
Not for anyone else!
BLANCHE:
Why, you precious thing, you! Is it just coke?
STELLA [turning]:
You mean you want a shot in it!
BLANCHE:
Well, honey, a shot never does a coke any harm! Let me! You mustn't wait on me!
