A Streetcar Named Desire Foreshadowing Quotes

[Her expression is one of shocked disbelief. Her appearance is incongruous to this setting. She is daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and earrings of pearl, white gloves and hat, looking as if she were arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party in the garden district. She is about five years older than Stella. Her delicate beauty must avoid a strong light. There is something about her uncertain manner, as well as her white clothes, that suggests a moth.]

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 1. On arrival to Stella Kowalski’s apartment and its working class setting in New Orleans, Blanche DuBois is shocked at how her sister has come down in the world. Blanche is dressed in elegant clothes and jewelry looking very much the Southern Belle. A simile compares her appearance to that of someone arriving to a summer party in the garden district. The white of her suit and gloves reflects an image of purity and chastity, but this will be later shown as ironic when her past sins and promiscuity are exposed. Her appearance is described as being out of place in this lower class community. In a metaphor she is compared her to a delicate and fragile moth that must avoid strong light. Moths tend to fly around artificial light sources, often dying as a result. When Blanche is later exposed to the strong light of reality, it leads to her demise as a character, which is foreshadowed here. Her description as "delicate" hints at her mental instability, which will see her committed to a mental institution.

They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and transfer to one called Cemeteries, and ride six blocks and get off at – Elysian Fields!

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 1. There is much situational irony, symbolism and classical allusion in Blanche DuBois’s description of the journey she takes to get to Stella and Stanley’s apartment in New Orleans. Important themes of mortality and sexual desire are contained in her words to Eunice. Foreshadowed is her tragic journey to her eventual mental destruction and the fatal desire that drives her actions and those of the other characters. The streetcars Desire and Cemeteries referred to by Blanche are real and Elysian Fields is also an actual street. There is important metaphorical meaning in the three names used. In Greek mythology Elysian Fields was the final resting place for heroes and the virtuous, a heavenly reward from the gods after they died. But for Blanche it will bring no such comfort and will be the place of her emotional and mental downfall. Her trip on the streetcars symbolizes the journey of her own life to her degradation and ruin.

I was so exhausted by all I’d been through my – nerves broke. [Nervously tamping cigarette] I was on the verge of – lunacy, almost! So Mr. Graves – Mr. Graves is the high school superintendent – he suggested I take a leave of absence.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 1. Blanche explains to Stella why she is no longer working as a teacher. She speaks about being on the edge of lunacy, foreshadowing the end of the play when she is committed to an insane asylum. There is also death imagery here with her school superintendent being named Graves.

I don’t like a bed that gives much. But there’s no door between the two rooms, and Stanley – will it be decent?

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 1. Blanche learns that she will sleep in a folding bed in the room next to Stanley and Stella’s bedroom, with no door between the two. The close proximity of the beds and Blanche’s question to Stanley about whether this is decent foreshadows the sex between the two later in the play and revelations that Blanche has shared a bed with many men in her time.

These are love-letters, yellowing with antiquity, all from one boy…Poems a dead boy wrote. I hurt him the way that you would like to hurt me, but you can’t! I’m not young and vulnerable anymore. But my young husband was and I – never mind about that! Just give them back to me!

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 2. Blanche is horrified when Stanley grabs personal papers from her trunk, including her late husband Allan Gray’s love letters, and rifles through them. What is evident here is Blanche’s guilt over the death of her husband, who shot himself. She is also aware of the danger Stanley poses to her when she observes that he would like to hurt her. This is foreshadowing of Stanley’s mental destruction and rape of Blanche later in the play.

[She takes off the blouse and stands in her pink silk brassiere and white skirt in the light through the portieres. The game has continued in undertones.]

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 3. Blanche decides to undress in the light, with only a curtain separating the bedroom and the kitchen where the men are playing poker. She flaunts her womanly assets so the men can see the outline of her body through the curtain. Desperate for Mitch to notice her, she uses her sexuality to attract his attention. Foreshadowed here is the secretive sexual side of Blanche and promiscuous past in her hometown of Laurel we later learn about.

BLANCHE: Yes. [During the pause she looks up at the sky.] There’s so much – so much confusion in the world… [He coughs diffidently] Thank you for being so kind! I need kindness now.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 3. A terrified Blanche finds comfort in Mitch who offers her a cigarette after the Stanley’s violent outburst in which he strikes Stella. Blanche is a woman who is dependent on the kindness of others. She is drawn to Mitch, who provides a softer version of masculinity than the insensitive and bullish Stanley. This passage shows her mental fragility and need to escape into her fictional world of fantasy, as she gazes towards the sky and is confused by the real world. Foreshadowed is Blanche’s descent into madness at the end of the play when Stanley directs his sexual violence against her.

What such a man has to offer is animal force and he gave a wonderful exhibition of that! But the only way to live with such a man is to – go to bed with him! And that’s your job – not mine!

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 4. Blanche tells Stella that the only way to live with an animal like Stanley is to keep him happy with sex. She finds Stanley’s brute force masculinity abhorrent and cannot understand her sister’s attraction to him, especially after he hit her the night before. Blanche is unknowingly foreshadowing her own rape, not realizing that Stanley will turn that animal force on her in Scene 10.

[Stella has embraced him – with both arms, fiercely, and full in the view of Blanche. He laughs and clasps her head to him. Over her head he grins through the curtains at Blanche.]

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 4. These are the stage directions after Stanley overhears Blanche’s conversation with Stella about his "bestial" nature. Stella shows her dependence on Stanley when she chooses his sexual and animal appeal over her sister. Despite Blanche attacking him as sub-human, Stella decides to remain loyal to her husband. This foreshadows Stella’s later decision to send Blanche to a mental asylum rather than accept that Stanley raped her. In the battle between Blanche and Stanley for power over Stella, his sinister victory grin informs us that he knows he has won.

Now run along, now, quickly! It would be nice to keep you, but I’ve got to be good – and keep my hands off children.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 5. Blanche says this to the newspaper boy who calls to the door to collect money for The Evening Star, after touching his cheek and kissing him on the lips. Her talk about keeping her hands off children echoes Blanche’s very sexual and hidden self and her fondness for boys. Foreshadowed here is Stanley’s shocking revelation in Scene 7 as to why Blanche was fired from her teaching job in Laurel.

We are going to be very Bohemian. We are going to pretend that we are sitting in a little artists’ café on the Left Bank in Paris! [She lights a candle stub and put it in a bottle.] Je suis la Dame aux Comellias! Vous êtes- Armand! Understand French?

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 6. Blanche invites Mitch into her fantasy world. Seemingly unable to bear the reality of them being in the small Kowalski flat, she asks him to imagine they are in the romantic setting of an artists’ cafe in Paris. In her flight of imagination, she flaunts her educated and cultured background, telling him in French, which he does not understand: "I am the Lady of the Camellias! You are – Armand!" This is an allusion to the play La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas the Younger. It tells of the tragic love story between a courtesan or prostitute to the nobility and a middle-class man named Armand. There are parallels between this classic story of love and loss and Blanche. She has a promiscuous past that Mitch is not yet aware of. Her abandonment by Mitch when he learns of this from Stanley is foreshadowed here.

The first time I laid eyes on him I thought to myself, that man is my executioner! That man will destroy me.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 6. Blanche reveals to Mitch what she thought when she first saw Stanley. Straight away she sensed his destructive nature, metaphorically comparing him to her executioner. This foreshadows the play’s tragic climax, when Stanley brings about Blanche’s downfall. He rapes her and causes her to have a complete mental breakdown – the "execution" of her sanity.

BLANCHE: Something has happened!- What is it?
STELLA [fuming away quickly]: Why, nothing has happened, Blanche.
BLANCHE: You’re lying! Something has!
[She stares fearfully at Stella, who pretends to be busy at the table. The distant piano goes into a hectic breakdown.]

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 7. After Stanley reveals Blanche’s promiscuous past to Stella, Blanche realizes that something has gone wrong. Stella lies to her that nothing has happened, while the blue piano goes into "a hectic breakdown." This foreshadows the disaster about to befall Blanche and mental breakdown she will have.

STELLA: You needn’t have been so cruel to someone alone as she is.
STANLEY: Delicate piece she is.
STELLA: She is. She was. You didn’t know Blanche as a girl. Nobody, nobody, was tender and trusting as she was. But people like you abused her, and forced her to change.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 8. Stella is strong in her defense of her sister and condemnation of her husband. She confronts Stanley for his cruelty after he presents Blanche a "birthday remembrance" of a one-way bus ticket back to Laurel. When Stanley mockingly dismisses Blanche as a "delicate piece," Stella provides us with an insight into the character of the younger Blanche. Her sister was once innocent and naive and trusting, she reveals, but people like Stanley abused her and forced her to change. Foreshadowed here is the conflict between Stanley and Blanche, which will culminate in him sexually abusing and raping her.

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."

Now she is placing the rhinestone tiara on her head before the mirror of the dressing-table and murmuring excitedly as if to a group of spectral admirers.
BLANCHE: How about taking a swim, a moonlight swim at the old rock quarry? If anyone’s sober enough to drive a car! Ha-ha! Best way in the world to stop your head buzzing! Only you’ve got to be careful to dive where the deep pool is – if you hit a rock you don’t come up till tomorrow.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 10. After Mitch refuses to marry her, Blanche sinks deep into her world of fantasy and talks to a crowd of imaginary admirers wearing her rhinestone tiara. She has been drinking heavily, her grasp on reality has slipped and her delusional madness grows. She pretends that there are people who admire and desire her and she addresses them, but she is talking to herself. Her fantasy turns dark when she speaks of diving into the deep pool and hitting a rock, foreshadowing the dangers ahead for her.

[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."

[The bathroom door is thrown open and Stanley comes out in the brilliant silk pajamas. He grins at her as he knots the tasseled sash about his waist… he stares at her again, his mouth slowly curving into a grin, as he weaves between Blanche and the outer door… The barely audible "blue piano" begins to drum up louder. The sound of it turns into the roar of an approaching locomotive. Blanche crouches, pressing her fists to her ears.]

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 10. These stage directions describe the menacing sexual predator Stanley and a frightened Blanche, just before he rapes her, which is foreshadowed here. His brutish masculinity and evil intent are suggested in the description of him grinning at Blanche in his silk pajamas while he steps between her and the door. The build up of tension is seen in the metaphor of the quiet piano music turning into the roar of an approaching train engine.

STANLEY: You think I’ll interfere with you? Ha-ha!
[The "blue piano" goes softly. She turns confusedly and makes a faint gesture. The inhuman jungle voices rise up. He takes a step toward her, biting his tongue which protrudes between his lips.]
STANLEY [softly]: Come to think of it – maybe you wouldn’t be bad to – interfere with.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 10. There is a sinister sexual tone in Stanley’s voice as he confronts Blanche in his silk pajamas and wonders what she would be like to "interfere with." Animal imagery about "inhuman jungle voices" and Stanley biting on his protruding tongue suggest a primal animal intent to satisfy his desire. Again we hear the "blue piano" music heightening the atmosphere of tension. Stanley’s sexual assault on Blanche is foreshadowed here.
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