A Streetcar Named Desire Eunice Quotes

She showed me a picture of your home-place, the plantation… A great big place with white columns.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 1. Eunice, speaking to Stella, appears fascinated with the grandness of Belle Reve. This is after Blanche shows her a picture of the family’s plantation. Belle Reve comes from the French and means "beautiful dream." But it is an illusion that hides an ugly truth, the dream is beautiful only to those who owned the plantation. Belle Reve is a fantasy version of the Old South, symbolizing privilege and wealth that was built on the cruelty of the slave trade.

You can’t beat on a woman an’ then call ‘er back! She won’t come! And her goin’ t’ have a baby!… You stinker! You whelp of a Polack, you! I hope they do haul you in and turn the fire hose on you, same as the last time!

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 3. After being hit by Stanley, Stella with the help of her sister has fled to the safety of Eunice’s apartment upstairs. From there Eunice lambasts Stanley, who is calling for his wife from the sidewalk below. Eunice is a strong woman and one of the few people to stand up to Stanley. She pulls no punches in telling him what a low-life he is for beating his pregnant wife. From her words, it is clear that it is not the first time Stanley has been violent towards Stella.

BLANCHE: Why are you looking at me like that? Is something wrong with me?
EUNICE: You look wonderful, Blanche. Don’t she look wonderful?

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 11. Blanche is completely out of touch with reality and doesn’t know what is going on. We have dramatic irony here, because the other characters know that Blanche is being sent to a mental institution and she is unaware of this. She also feels that everybody is staring at her and is concerned about her appearance, but Eunice assures her that she looks wonderful.

EUNICE [returning, brightly]: Someone is calling for Blanche.
BLANCHE: It is for me, then!
[She looks fearfully from one to the other and then to the portieres. The "Varsouviana" faintly plays]
Is it the gentleman I was expecting from Dallas?

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 11. Blanche’s madness and detachment from reality are apparent when Eunice announces that someone is calling. It is the Doctor and Matron who have come to take Blanche to the mental institution. But Blanche believes her old college boyfriend Shep Huntleigh has arrived to rescue her. The polka tune she and her young husband danced to before he shot himself and has haunted Blanche ever since plays faintly.
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