This scene is back at the flat with Stella at the hospital having her baby and Blanche Stanley all alone in the flat. No one else is present in the scene to give one hundred percent focus on blanche and Stanley in this dramatic climax of his scene.
Just before this scene Blanche has had a confrontation with her boyfriend Mitch that ended with controversy. The stage directions explain that Blanche has began packing her clothes and is ready to leave and move on, She is also drinking very heavily and is talking to her self. She also took a look at the mirror and slammed it down in disgust.
Stanley has been drinking and has come home from the hospital after been with Stella. He is wearing his bowling shirt and some bottles of beer in his hand. He is looking a bit tired and his action towards Blanche is a low whistle, which suggests that she is a bit stressed. He slams the door behind him when he enters the kitchen witch gives the impression that he is not in a good mood but really he is overwhelmed about his and Stella’s baby.
The stage directions add a lot of tension to the scene because there is so many actions it gives a feeling that something big is going to happen.
Stanley and Blanche’s conversation starts off with Blanche saying that she’d got a wire from an old friend and she is going on holiday with him, I don’t think Stanley believes her so he starts to be sarcastic towards everything she says like when she says ‘an invitation’ and then Stanley replies ‘what to? A fireman’s ball’. Stanley carries on been sarcastic and then he just comes out with ‘as a matter of there was no wire at all!’ I think Stanley feels glad to get rid and see blanche get emotionally hurt.
Blanche panics in away we have not yet seen in the play, she rushes around phoning operators, you can see that she is having a nervous breakdown by the way she speaks on the phone for example ‘just ask any body who – wait! – No, I couldn’t find it right now… please understand, I – no! No, wait! One moment! Someone is – nothing! Hold on, please’ you can also tell she is going mentally disordered because of the stage directions say for instance ‘Blanche presses her knuckles to her lips’ and when it says ‘blanche crouches, pressing her fists to her ears until it has gone’
I think the audience knows this was going to happen it was just a matter of time before she went insane.
The stage directions on pages 109 and 110 add to the tension in this scene by giving a huge sense of fear. The play writer mentions the words ‘grotesque shadows’ and ‘jungle noises’ because it gives a sense that this scene is so awful that it is just inhuman or unreal.
The scenes outside ads tension because it tells you that no one will be coming because its after dark and no one is outside apart from all the unpleasant people who are homeless or prostitutes, only looking for money or to pick up some guy, so they wouldn’t really care if anything would happen to someone else.
Blanches feelings towards Stanley are that she absolutely terrified of him as the stage directions say that ‘she smashes a bottle on the top and faces him.’ And when he asks her ‘what did you do that for’ and she replies ‘so I could twist the broken end in your face!’ at this point she is losing it completely and she seems capable of anything but Stanley just over powers her.
In general the audience I don’t think are shocked by the actions of blanche but I bet they were probably feeling a bit sorry for her because that had to happen to her and by her sister’s husband as well.
Stanley’s figure in this scene becomes very frightening because he is a tall well-built man assaulting a much smaller more delicate blanche. In this scene the stage directions say it all for example ‘the shadows are of a grotesque and menacing form.’ Also the trumpet and drums make Stanley seem more dominant.
The struggle at the end of the scene is quite disturbing and one that had Blanche Seriously hurt. Stanley’s last line we’ve had this date from the beginning suggests that they have always had an eye for each other all the time and it was bound to happen. In the end of the scene the audience must feel a bit shocked at the outcome and the events that took place.
My opinion of the scene is it is far the most powerful of the book because of the events that take place and the outcome at the end.
The use of stage directions ads to scene because it shows how much was going on in the scene and how it talks about the shadows and all the describing words used.
To sum up the scene Blanche is a bit tipsy at the beginning and she starts to lie about the memo Stanley starts of very sarcastically and just comes out with how much she was lying all the time and this upsets her and that is when Stanley starts getting aggressive with her and that is when the rape takes place and not long after she gets taken into care.
Andrew Wiltshire