He came to me for help. I didn’t know that. I didn’t find out anything till after our marriage when we’d run away and come back and all I knew was I’d failed him in some mysterious way and wasn’t able to give the help he needed but couldn’t speak of! He was in the quicksands and clutching at me – but I wasn’t holding him out, I was slipping in with him! I didn’t know that. I didn’t know anything except I loved him unendurably but without being able to help him or help myself.
– Tennessee Williams
A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 6. Blanche uses the metaphorical language of quicksand to convey her own self-destructive nature and the desperation and hopelessness she and Allan Gray faced when they wed. Both were dragged down by society after she married the young homosexual in the 1940s homophobic and patriarchal America.