A Streetcar Named Desire Alcohol Quotes

Open your pretty mouth and talk while I look around for some liquor! I know you must have some liquor on the place Where could it be, I wonder? Oh, I spy, I spy!

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 1. Blanche lies to Stella about not knowing where the liquor is kept. But we know that she had already discovered a bottle of whiskey in the closet before Stella arrived and helped herself to a half tumbler. This is an example of dramatic irony. Blanche deludes herself into believing that she doesn’t have an alcohol problem. The reality is she covers up the extent of her drinking by lying about it to other people.

Just water, baby, to chase it! Now don’t get worried, your sister hasn’t turned into a drunkard, she’s just all shaken up and hot and tired and dirty!

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 1. One of the first things Blanche reaches for when she shows up at her sister’s home is the whiskey bottle, treating herself to a large helping from it. When Stella returns home, Blanche has another glass. But she attempts to conceal her alcoholism from her sister by playing down her drinking. The audience already knows about Blanche’s over-fondness for drink, an example of dramatic irony.

I’m not accustomed to having more than one drink. Two is the limit – and three! [She laughs] Tonight I had three.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 3. When he comes to covering up the extent of her drinking, Blanche is an accomplished liar. She assures people that she has drunk less than she actually has, like she does here with Mitch. Here we have an example of dramatic irony, since the audience is already aware of her drinking habits. The theme of fantasy vs reality is also seen here.

Yes, I do, so refreshed. [She tinkles her highball glass.] A hot bath and a long, cold drink always give me a new outlook on life!

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 7. It’s clear from Blanche’s words to Stella that bathing serves as a cleansing ritual and tool for her. Dramatic irony is created here when she says that a hot bath and cool drink gives her a "new outlook." For we know that outlook has just been destroyed by Stanley, when he uncovered Blanche’s sordid past in Laurel.

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."

What am I looking around here for? Oh, yes – liquor! We’ve had so much excitement around here this evening that I am boxed out of my mind! [She pretends suddenly to find the bottle. He draws his foot up on the bed and stares at her contemptuously.] Here’s something. Southern Comfort! What is that, I wonder?

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 9. Blanche pretends to search for and find the liquor bottle. An obvious alcoholic who pretends that she is not, she turns to alcohol to solve her problems. Ironically there is no comfort to be had for her in the bottle of Southern Comfort.

Yes, I had many intimacies with strangers. After the death of Allan – intimacies with strangers was all I seemed able to fill my empty heart with… I think it was panic, just panic, that drove me from one to another, hunting for some protection – here and there, in the most – unlikely places – even, at last, in a seventeen-year-old boy but – somebody wrote the superintendent about it – "This woman is morally unfit for her position!"
[She throws back her head with convulsive, sobbing laughter. Then she repeats the statement, gasps, and drinks.]

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 9. In order to feel alive and desired after her husband’s suicide, Blanche admits to sleeping with strangers. She confesses to having sex with a teenage student, which results in her losing her teaching job. Blanche’s deteriorating mental state shows here as stage directions describe her throwing back her head with "convulsive, sobbing laughter" and consuming more alcohol.

Blanche has been drinking fairly steadily since Mitch left… As the drinking and packing went on, a mood of hysterical exhilaration came into her and she has decked herself out in a somewhat soiled and crumpled white satin evening gown and a pair of scuffed silver slippers with brilliants set in their heels.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 10. These stage directions towards the end of the play shows Blanche as a tragic figure dressed in a "soiled and crumpled" fairytale princess outfit. Her make-believe and tarnished bridal-like appearance reflects her deteriorating mental state which has been further fueled by alcohol.

[The bottle cap pops off and a geyser of foam shoots up. Stanley laughs happily, holding up the bottle over his head.]
Ha-ha! Rain from heaven! [He extends the bottle toward her] Shall we bury the hatchet and make it a loving-cup? Huh?

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 10. Stanley, alone in the apartment with Blanche while his wife is in hospital, celebrates becoming a father with a bottle of beer. The cap popping off his bottle, geyser of foam shooting up and Stanley raising the bottle victoriously over his head, is full of phallic symbolism. It is a metaphor for sex and foreshadows what will follow in this scene, Stanley’s sexual triumph over Blanche. His invitation to Blanche to share "a loving-cup" is filled with double meaning and sexual intent. Beer is one of Stanley’s great pleasures is beer, in a metaphor he compares to "rain from heaven."

I’ve been on to you from the start! Not once did you pull any wool over this boy’s eyes! You come in here and sprinkle the place with powder and spray perfume and cover the light bulb with a paper lantern, and lo and behold the place has turned into Egypt and you are the Queen of the Nile! Sitting on your throne and swilling down my liquor! I say – Ha! – Ha! Do you hear me? Ha – ha – ha!

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 10. Despite his rough and uneducated ways, Stanley proves to be an extremely sharp and clever man. He goes about mentally destroying Blanche, letting her know that he has seen through her lies and theatrics from the very start. In an mocking metaphor he likens her to a deluded Cleopatra, who uses the paper lantern to turn the place into Egypt and hide her real self. Laughing in her face, he accuses her of sitting on her high-class throne and downing his liquor. Stanley is merciless as he tears down Blanche’s illusions about herself.
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