You’re a natural gentleman, one of the very few that are left in the world. I don’t want you to think that I am severe and old maid school-teacherish or anything like that. It’s just – well – … I guess it is just that I have – old-fashioned ideals!
[She rolls her eyes, knowing he cannot see her face.]
– Tennessee Williams
A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 6. Blanche pretends to be old-fashioned when it comes to romance and virtue, asking Mitch to "unhand me" when he embraces her. Her reluctance to allow Mitch to touch or kiss her is to create the illusion of purity so that Mitch will marry her. She makes much of Mitch’s good manners and high moral quality as a natural gentleman. But Blanche’s feigned modesty is contradicted by her behavior in the previous scene when she passionately kissed a newspaper boy on the mouth.