A Streetcar Named Desire- Scene Two Summary

Summary:
-​ It is six o’clock in the evening on the day following Blanche’s arrival
-​ Blanche is offstage, taking a bath to soothe her nerves
-​ When Stanley walks in the door, Stella tells him that in order to spare Blanche the
company of Stanley’s poker buddies in the apartment that night, she wants to take
Blanche out to the New Orleans’s French Quarter
-​ Stella explains Blanche’s ordeal and intense misery of losing Belle Reve and asks
Stanley to be kind to Blanche by flattering her appearance
-​ She also instructs Stanley not to mention the baby and she doesn’t want her sister to
know yet
-​ He wants to know about the property and insists on seeing papers, when Stella can’t
provide any he gets agitated
-​ Stanley believes that Blanche’s emotional frailty is an act contrived to hide theft
-​ Stella goes onto the porch and Blanche comes out of the shower all fresh
-​ She flirts with Stanley and tells him to button up her dress and asks for a drag of the
cigarette he is smoking
-​ He begins to question sarcastically how Blanche came to acquire so many fancy dress
items, and he rejects Blanche’s flirtatious bids to make the conversation more
kind-spirited
-​ Sensing that the impending conversation might upset Stella, Blanche calls out to her
sister requesting that she run to the drugstore to buy a soda
-​ Blanche takes from her trunk a box filled with papers and hands it to Stanley
-​ Stanley snatches additional papers from her trunk and begins to read them
-​ Blanche is horrified and grabs back this second set of papers, which are old letters and
love poems she has saved from her husband
-​ She redirects Stanley’s attention to the papers she originally handed to him, and Stanley
realises that Blanche has acted honestly, the estate really was lost on its mortgage, not
sold as he suspected
-​ They have conversation about the type of women he likes and Blanche tells Stella to run
to the shop and get a drink
-​ Blanche says Stanley can ask any questions he wants and he immediately refers to the
Napoleonic code, a code of law recognized in New Orleans from the days of French rule
that places women’s property in the hands of their husbands
-​ He wants to see the papers that prove she actually sold the land
-​ He makes references to having ideas about her, but being stopped because that's his
sister in law
-​ He wants to see legal papers that are connected with the plantation
-​ He roughly goes through her suitcase and she doesn’t like how he is invading her
privacy
-​ She snatches it back and opens the case and gives him the papers
-​ He sees the other papers at the bottom and questions what they are
-​ She says they’re love letters from another boy and is very possessive with them as she
doesn’t want him to have them because they are personal
-​ She says she will now burn them because someone else has touched them

, -​ He realises the house was lost via a mortgage and says that under the Napoleonic code,
a women’s property is in the hands of their husband
-​ She explains how the papers go far back to their ancestors, but now all they owned was
the house, acres of grass and a graveyard
-​ He accidentally slips that his wife is expecting a baby
-​ Blanche goes outside and congratulate her sister for being pregnant
-​ Blanche explains how her and Stanley had a conversation and also mentions that she
flirted with her sister’s husband
-​ The men come in to play poker and they stare at Blanche as she walks in
-​ Her and Stella make their way for their night out
-​ Stella returns from the drugstore, and some of the men arrive for their poker game
-​ Exhilarated by the news of Stella’s pregnancy and by her own handling of the situation
with Stanley, Blanche follows Stella for their girls’ night out
-​ On their way offstage, Blanche comments that mixing their old, aristocratic blood with
Stanley’s immigrant blood may be the only way to insure the survival of their lineage in
the world

Quotes:
-​ “Oh, in my youth I excited some admiration”
-​ “I never met a women that didn’t know she was good looking or not without being
told”
-​ “You’re simple, straightforward and honest” (B to Stanley)
-​ “If I didn’t know that you were my wifes sister I’d get ideas about you”
-​ “Yes- I was flirting with your husband, Stella!”
-​ “How pretty the sky is! I ought to go there on a rocket that never comes down”
-​ "I hurt him the way that you would like to hurt me, but you can't."
-​ “Some men are taken in by all this hollywood glamour stuff and some are not”
➔​ He isn’t fooled by Blanche’s appearance and flirtatious personality
➔​ He has an outright refusal to be fooled by her acts
➔​ He is a realist and refuses to be misled by lies
➔​ He distinguishes himself from the crowd
➔​ Lays it out to Blanche how it is
➔​ Blanche is used to men being all over her
-​ “Kowalski’s and Dubois… different notions”
➔​ The word order of the opposing names confirms where Stella’s loyalty lies and
foreshadows what decisions she will make about her sister towards the end of the novel
-​ “She jumps up and kisses him which he accepts with lordly composure”
-​ “After all, a woman's charm is fifty percent illusion”
➔​ Conveys to the audience that she likes to be mysterious and has many hidden traits
-​ “The touch of your hands insults them”
➔​ Suggests Blanche views him as a dirty animal who is contaminating her memories she
holds value to
-​ “In the state of Louisiana we have the Napoleonic code according to which what
belongs to the wife belongs to the husband and vice versa”