A Streetcar Named Desire Sexuality Quotes

STANLEY: Catch!
STELLA: What?
STANLEY: Meat!
[Be heaves the package at her. She cries out in protest but manages to catch it; then she laughs breathlessly. Her husband and his companion have already started back around the corner.]

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 1. Stanley is the 20th century version of the primitive caveman hunter gatherer, as depicted in this opening scene with his wife Stella. He is portrayed as the dominant one in the marriage. And she the submissive one who catches the meat he throws to her to cook for them. The way Stanley "heaves" the package of meat to Stella is symbolic of the sexual relationship between them.

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 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.

I can hardly stand it when he is away for a night… When he’s away for a week I nearly go wild!… And when he comes back I cry on his lap like a baby.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 1. From Stella’s comments to her sister Blanche about husband Stanley, we can deduce that their marriage is built upon sexual passion. In a simile she compares herself to crying like a baby when he returns after being away, showing her dependence on her husband. This reflects a societal gender power balance very much in favor of men at the time and place of the play.

Yes, accuse me! Sit there and stare at me, thinking I let the place go! I let the place go? Where were you! In bed with your – Polack!

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 1. Blanche feels that Stella is accusing her with her eyes of letting Belle Reve go. So she turns the blame around to Stella, saying that her sister prioritized sleeping with Stanley over saving the family home. Full of the notion that she is high-class, Blanche uses the derogatory term Polack when belittling Stanley and referring to his background.

[Animal joy in his being is implicit in all his movements and attitudes. Since earliest manhood the center of his life has been pleasure with women, the giving and taking of it, not with weak indulgence, dependency, but with the power and pride of a richly feathered male bird among hens.]

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 1. This description of Stanley presents him metaphorically as a very sexual brightly colored male bird that dominates the female hens. His primitive, animalistic, and alpha male nature is highlighted.

[His heartiness with men, his appreciation of rough humor, his love of good drink and food and games, his car, his radio, everything that is his, that bears his emblem of the gaudy seed-bearer. He sizes women up at a glance, with sexual classifications, crude images flashing into his mind and determining the way he smiles at them.]

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 1. Stanley’s hypermasculinity and strongly sexual nature are highlighted in this description of him. The metaphor of him as the "gaudy seed-bearer" emphasizes his extreme virility and that he is a man who takes pleasure in exercising his manhood.

BLANCHE: You’re simple, straightforward, and honest, a little bit on the primitive side I should think. To interest you a woman would have to – [She pauses with an indefinite gesture.]
STANLEY: [slowly] Lay… her cards on the table.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 2. Blanche talks of the kind of man Stanley is and sees him for what he is, primitive and animalistic. She appears to be flirting with him. When Stanley responds about the kind of woman he prefers, his words have a sexual suggestion to them.

There are thousands of papers, stretching back over hundreds of years, affecting Belle Reve as, piece by piece, our improvident grandfathers and father and uncles and brothers exchanged the land for their epic fornications – to put it plainly! The four-letter word deprived us of our plantation, till finally all that was left – and Stella can verify that! – was the house itself and about twenty acres of ground, including a graveyard, to which now all but Stella and I have retreated.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 2. When Stanley accuses Blanche of swindling Stella out of her inheritance, Blanche blames the loss of Belle Reve on the debauchery of her male ancestors. She creates the illusion that it was destroyed by the out of control sexual behavior of the men in the family. But it is later revealed that Blanche herself has been guilty of the same "epic fornications" she complains about in others. We see the theme of death here with the reference to the plantation being reduced to a few acres of land, including a graveyard.

We thrashed it out. I feel a bit shaky, but I think I handled it nicely, I laughed and treated it all as a joke. I called him a little boy and laughed and flirted. Yes, I was flirting with your husband!

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 2. Blanche tells Stella of the clash she had with Stanley earlier, when he challenged her about the sale of the family plantation and grabbed papers from her trunk. She admits to flirting with Stanley, her way of communicating with men. We see the beginning of conflict and also sexual tension between the two, something that develops throughout the play and reaches a climax with the rape in Scene 10.

[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.

STANLEY [with heaven-splitting violence]: STELLLAHHHHH!
[The low-tone clarinet moans. The door upstairs opens again. Stella slips down the rickety stairs in her robe. Her eyes are glistening with tears and her hair loose about her throat and shoulders. They stare at each other. Then they come together with low, animal moans. He falls to his knees on the steps and presses his face to her belly, curving a little with maternity. Her eyes go blind with tenderness as she catches his head and raises him level with her. He snatches the screen door open and lifts her off her feet and bears her into the dark flat.]

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 3. After Stanley hits Stella their reunion is described in animalistic terms as they "come together with low, animal moans." The personification of the clarinet music so that it also "moans" highlights the very strong sexual bond that exists between Stella and Stanley. Stanley’s cry "STELLLAHHHHH" and his falling to his knees to press his face to her pregnant belly does show a less dominant masculinity and more tender side to him. But even through his display of vulnerability he is showing his power over Stella. Wife beater he may be, but Stanley wants Stella back and Stanley won’t be denied.

Stanley’s always smashed things. Why, on our wedding night – soon as we came in here – he snatched off one of my slippers and rushed about the place smashing the light bulbs with it… I was – sort of – thrilled by it.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 4. There is an undercurrent of sexuality to Stanley’s aggressive behavior, which Stella finds a turn-on. Instead of running or screaming at him for smashing things on their wedding night, Stella explains to an incredulous Blanche that she was thrilled by this. This shows Stella retreating into a fantasy world to avoid the ugly reality that she is married to a violent man.

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.

But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark – that sort of make everything else seem – unimportant.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 4. Stella’s sexual attraction for Stanley is so great that she stays with him despite the fact that he hits her, gets drunk and is verbally abusive. These things she dismisses as unimportant. Stella is explaining to Blanche about her overwhelming love for Stanley. It is one based, not on any emotional connection, but on pure physical attraction and sexual passion. This is the glue that bonds the two together.

BLANCHE: What you are talking about is brutal desire – just – Desire! – the name of that rattle-trap streetcar that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another…
STELLA: Haven’t you ever ridden on that streetcar?

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 4. Blanche uses the streetcar as a metaphor to tell Stella that sheer brutal sexual desire is no basis for a marriage. Stella continues the metaphor by asking if Blanche has never given into that same desire.

[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.

I never was hard or self-sufficient enough. When people are soft – soft people have got to shimmer and glow – they’ve got to put on soft colors, the colors of butterfly wings, and put a – paper lantern over the light… It isn’t enough to be soft. You’ve got to be soft and attractive. And I – I’m fading now! I don’t know how much longer I can turn the trick.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 5. Blanche knows that her scandalous behavior over the last two years has been the subject of gossip. Using metaphors, she explains her difficulties in life to Stella as her physical looks fade through age. She had to put on a feminine facade of fantasy and illusion, her "butterfly wings", to make herself attractive to men. Her use of the double entendre "turn the trick" is interesting as she wonders how much longer she can keep up her lies and deceit. The phrase is also a reference to prostitution, with Blanche having led a less than virtuous life back in Laurel. The paper lantern over the light symbolizes how Blanche obscures the truth and conceals her real self from men and everybody else.

People don’t see you – men don’t – don’t even admit your existence unless they are making love to you. And you’re got to have your existence admitted by someone, if you’re going to have someone’s protection.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 5. Blanche, speaking about her sexual adventures, admits that she can only find a sense of self through physical relations with men. She has sex so that she can be seen and have her existence confirmed. She is thus completely dependent on men in order to feel she has a sense of personal identity.
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