She has on her scarlet satin robe. On the table beside chair is a bottle of liquor and a glass. The rapid feverish polka tune, the "Varsouviana," is heard. The music is in her mind; she is drinking to escape it and the sense of disaster closing in on her, and she seems to whisper the words of the song… She rushes about frantically, hiding the bottle in a closet, crouching at the mirror and dabbing her face with cologne and powder.
– Tennessee Williams
A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 9. The scarlet robe represents Blanche’s history of sexual promiscuity, the color red being associated with love and desire. In these key stage directions we learn why Blanche she drinks so much. It is to escape her troubled past and the harsh reality of her present situation. The music, an auditory hallucination that’s only in Blanche’s mind, is a reminder of her husband Allan Gray who shot himself. The rapid and feverish manner in which it is played reflects her deteriorating and fragile mental state. Also foreshadowed here are Mitch’s attempt to have sex with her and Stanley’s rape – "disaster closing in on her."