Stanley: Meat!
[He heaves the package at her. She cries out in protest but manages to catch it. Then she laughs breathless...]"
Here William used the meat as a symbol which describes the sexual connection that Stella and Stanley have for each other. It also means that Stella accepts Stanley the way he is. Later she confesses to Blanche her sister that she cries when Stanley is not around which shows she is crazy about him.
The protagonist Blanche Dubois enters the play. She arrives in Elysian Field to stay with her sister Stella. She looks out of the place as the play says "her appearance is incongruous to this setting she is daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and ear rings of pearls, white gloves and hat, looking as if she was arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party..." White color is the symbol of purity and virginity. Blanche is not pure and nor is she virgin which we find later on. So Williams has ironically given her this dressing.
" There is something about her uncertain manner, as well as her white clothes, that suggests a moth." She is compared to a moth. Moths are drawn from light and Blanche even doesn’t like staying in light.
Elysian Field is a street in New Orleans where Stanley and Stella live. But Elysian Field according to Greek mythology means a peaceful place where people who are dead go there. The irony of this is where Blanche has reached is totally opposite to how she expected.
She says to Eunice as she approaches to Stella's apartment " They told me to take a streetcar named desire, and then transfer to one called cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at Elysian Fields" she is asking for directions to Eunice as she didn't expect this place to be the right one. Later she talks to Stella, "...Never never never in my worse dream could I picture...".
She expected Elysian Field to be like a place of what it literally means. She wanted peace but what she found was the opposite of it.
Blue piano is played in the beginning of the play. It is expressed by Williams as 'a spirit of life that goes here' later in the play it mostly played on the moods of the characters.
The opening of the scene does set the tones of the play through many symbols like bowling, the poker games and lots of drinking by men showed their dominance over women. The blue piano is the symbol of inter mingling of races which was accepted by the society.
by
aro-oj (student)
