MITCH: You are light as a feather.
BLANCHE: Ha-ha!
[He lowers her but keeps his hands on her waist. Blanche speaks with an affectation of demureness]
You may release me now… [giddly] I said unhand me, sir.
[He fumblingly embraces her. Her voice sounds gently reproving]
Now, Mitch. Just because Stanley and Stella aren’t at home is no reason why you shouldn’t behave like a gentleman.
MITCH: Just give me a slap whenever I step out of bounds.
– Tennessee Williams
A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 6. Mitch and Blanche share a moment of awkward closeness when he asks what she weighs. She invites him to guess and he lifts her up, using a simile to compare her lightness to that of a feather. She lets him know the kind of man she wants, reminding him he must behave like a gallant gentleman. But Blanche’s air of the coy and virtuous Southern Belle is very much a role that she plays. Her display of feminine demureness is an "affectation," a pretense. Blanche likes to wear the mask of illusion and make-believe, so that she can bear the ugly reality of her own troubled life.