(drawing involuntarily back from his stare): “You must be Stanley. I’m Blanche”
“Stella’s sister?”
“Yes”
“H’lo. Where’s the little woman?”
The stage direction already give the meeting a sense of uneasiness. Blanche now seems to be thrown of balance by his unfriendly speech and he dialogue shows her hesitating in every sentence;
“I – uh –“
Where do you live, Blanche?”
“Why, I – live in Laurel”
These pauses show the reader that Blanch now has an uneasy feeling around Stanley, this continues throughout the play until it’s inevitable ending. Stanley seems to want to stamp his authority on Blanche straight away, he is the man of the house and he has to be respected. He addresses her assertively;
“What do you teach, Blanche?”
“How long are you here for, Blanche?”
By using her name at the end of every sentence, Stanley attempts to make Blanche feel she is being put on the spot, which seems to make her nervous. The conversation seems that it should be between a schoolteacher and a student. The structure of the dialogue also shows the nervous tension Blanche already has for Stanley. Throughout the scene, Stanley seems to be asking most of the questions while Blanche, very hesitantly, answers them. In the finale of the scene, the tension seems obvious between the pair;
(He grins at Blanche. She tries unsuccessfully to smile back. There is a silence)
This nervous silence makes it clear to the audience that these two characters both have a slight edge about their brief meeting. However, Stanley’s view of Blanche worsens in the following scene when he suspects Blanche on conning him and his wife out of some money;
“She didn’t show you no papers, no deed of sale or nothing like that, huh?”
“Well, what the hell was it then, give away? To charity?”
“Open your eyes to this stuff! You think she got them out of teacher’s pay?”
Stanley’s sarcasm in his speech only underlines his suspicion of his sister-in-law. He goes to confront Blanche later in the scene. The two have an argument about the subject and it is made clear, to the audience, that the two are from very different backgrounds;
“Your looks are okay”
“I was fishing for a compliment, Stanley”
“I don’t go for that stuff”
“What – stuff?”
“Compliments to women about their looks”
Blanche’s clear want for attention and admiration is harshly ignored and turned away by Stanley. He continues this throughout the rest of the play and this slowly but clearly builds the tension. However the biggest disagreement between the two is yet to come. I scene three, Blanche seems to want to get her own back on Stanley. As Stanley and his friends are enjoying a few games of card, Blanche decides to turn the radio on, much to the disapproval of Stanley;
“Who turned that on?”
“Turn it off!”
On this occasion, Stanley gets up and switches the radio off. But as the scene continues, Blanche decides again to switch the radio on. Has she forgotten that Stanley wishes the radio to be off or does she purposely turn it on again just to make him react? Stanley decides to deal with the noise accordingly;
(With a shouted oath, he tosses the instrument out of the window)
This over-reaction causes a massive fight in which Stanley hits Stella. Blanche can’t quite believe her eyes, where she’s from, women are treated with respect and this is a big change for her. Later in the scene, she talks to Mitch, her future lover, outside the house;
“I’m not used to so much –“
“Violence! Is so-“
Her shock is obvious, she isn’t used to this sort of behaviour from men. This is one of the many differences her and Stanley have between them. If they don’t sort out their differences very soon, one of the pair will have to leave and neither of them are willing to leave without a fight. The play is set to end in doom.
In my personal opinion, I’m torn between the two. On one side we have sweet, innocent Blanche who seems to feel like and alien in her sister’s habitat. In the first two scenes she seems content to let Stanley play his mind games and ignore him as much as she can. But in scene three, her obvious plan to upset Stanley succeeds and I can’t help but think she’s planning something else in the long run to, ultimately, get rid of Stanley for good. On the other hand, Stanley has had it in for Blanche from the start. His body language and dialogue seem to show he wants to asset his authority on her as quick as he can. He tries to upset her on purpose and has the same intention of getting rid of her as she does him. I think it is too early to pick sides now but, by the finale of the play, one side must ultimately win and one lose.
By Lee Waller
