From the audience’s first introduction to Stanley is when he ‘heaves the package’ of meat at Stella to the last, when his ‘fingers find the opening of (Stella’s) bra as the doctor and nurse take Blanche away, Stanley is shown as an expression of animalistic territory – the sexual domineering male. It is immediately clear that there is going to be conflict between him and Blanche, as in their first encounter he is irritated as she has been drinking his liquor. He immediately senses an invasion of his territory by Blanche, who has taken something that belongs to him. This is also emphasised by the fact that Blanche will have to share the same room as Stella and Stanley, thus becoming part of their sexual relationship – allowing trouble to be foreseen immediately. Although Stanley reluctantly accepts Blanche into his home, this acceptance requires Blanche to acknowledge his authority. When he ‘starts to remove his shirt’ it could be seen as an action to titillate Blanche, but instead it is more to intimidate her with his masculinity. From the moment they meet, Blanche and Stanley become absorbed in a personal battle to see who will win Stella and who will capture Mitch, so become involved in several confrontations. This can enable the reader/audience to see the play as a modern tragedy, and it is Blanche’s flaw – her pride of intellect and pride of sexual prowess, as well as wanton disregard for the sexual morals of the world in which she lives that result in her downfall.
In scene two there is another territorial dispute between Blanche and Stanley. It is clear when Blanche asks Stanley to help her button her dress, saying ‘you men with your big clumsy fingers’ that she is flirting with him, especially when she ‘playfully sprays him’ with the atomizer. This is a desperate attempt by Blanche to change the subject, as he is interrogating her on the loss of Belle Reve. His anger is founded on his interpretation of the Napoleonic Code, ‘according to which whatever belongs to my wife is also mine.’ Blanche thinks that she is able to use flirting as an escape from the truth, and reality, but Stanley is not at all impressed and ‘slams (the atomizer) down on the dresser.’ He clearly likes his women to be straight forward, shown through his relationship with Stella, which is based primarily on their strong physical attraction.
Another confrontation is shown during the poker night in scene three. Blanche one again flirts, but this time with Mitch when he passes through the bedroom on his way to the bathroom, which takes him away from Stanley’s poker game. Blanche then turns the radio on which plays music with a ‘sexy sound’, not appropriate as she moves into the light and stretches. This provocative action is designed in coercion with putting the radio on to attraction the attention of the other poker players. This frustrates Stanley, as she appears to be invading his house and lifestyle, so he throws the radio out of the window and attacks Stella. Blanche defies Stanley by taking Stella to Eunice’s apartment, but then Stanley answers this by taking Stella back into the apartment as he ‘presses his face to her belly, curving with new maternity.’ It is this new life inside her, a direct product of their sexual desire for each other that resolves conflict, and keeps them together. It is the new thread between them, where as Belle Reve was the old common thread between Blanche and Stella. They may not have had the same upbringing, but they share the same passion.
In scene four, Blanche talks to Stella about Stanley, calling him ‘common’ and a ‘brute’ and Stanley overhears her. He chooses to conceal this fact and instead exacts his revenge in the next scene when he reveals what he has learnt about her sexual indiscretions. Just as Blanche has robbed him of his wife and best friend, Stanley uses this information in seeking to destroy Blanche’s relationship with both her sister, and her prospective husband – Mitch. However, although through telling Mitch about Blanche’s past he succeeds, he is not successful with Stella, as despite sending her to an insane asylum, she still loves her sister.
Stanley’s territorial drive pushes him furthur and furthur. When he discovers that his attempts to physically and emotiaonally dominate Blanche have failed to drive the sisters apart, he investigates Blanche’s indiscretions and reveals them to Stella in scene seven. He uses this as an excuse to try and get Blanche out of the apartment, buying her a bus ticket from New Orleans to Laurel – Mississippi, which is useless to Blanche, as she has been told never to return to the town. This exuberates the guilt she feels about the death of her husband and her sexual indiscretions. Despite providing more conflict between Blanche and Stanley, this more detailed revelation about Blanche’s misconduct does not separate her from Stella, but does destroy her relationship with Mitch as he describes her as ‘not clean enough to bring in the house with her mother.’ As there is no other way he can maintain his territory, Stanley rapes Blanche, commenting that they ‘had this date with each other from the beginning.’ Here he establishes the physical domination he attempted unsuccessfully earlier on in the play, as well as the psychological domination he attempted by using her own guilt against her.
Throughout the play, Blanche’s feelings of guilt from the death of her husband play a clear part in her sexual attitude. She relives the experience of his death – caused by her discovering him is a secret sexual alliance with another man and being disgusted at him, causing him to shoot himself. His death is obviously a focal point in her life as she is hanunted by the ‘Varsouviana’, the music played at the dance before he killed himself. Blanche conflates Allan’s infidelity with her feelings of guilt and in turn begins to engage in self-destructive acts of her own – forming her sexual attitude affecting events and causing conflict throughout the play. These include ‘gang bangs’ with local army men, her dismissal as a school teacher as she seduced a young male student and her association with the young boy bringing the paper – she kisses him and then says ‘I’ve got to be good and keep my hands off children’, highlighting clearly her promiscuous attitude and diminishing any respect for her. It is difficult to separate Blanche’s apparent obsession with sex from her habitual flirtation, the stereotypical activity of a Southern belle, with all men. Regardless of this, she continues to commit acts, which cause her to be excluded from the community, and which eventually force her into a confrontational situation with Stanley.
Throughout the play, Blanche’s attitude to sex and sexuality creates tension between herself and Stanley resulting in conflict. Stanley uses Blanche’s past to try to separate her from Stella and Mitch, but only succeeds in the latter. The inevitability of the rape is hinted at by earlier encounters, as the tension between Blanche and Stanley has always been sexual due to Blanche’s constant flirting. She wears a ‘pink silk brassiere’, a sexual material, and a seductive ‘dark and red satin wrapper’ despite the fact she has never experienced the ‘real passion’ and ‘enduring love’ between Stella and Stanley and instead takes part in flings ‘while the devil is in’ her. She fails to understand their relationship, and this causes conflict between her and Stella, resulting in Stella not believing that Stanley raped Blanche – therefore sending her to the asylum. Stella and Stanley’s relationship and attitudes to sexuality do the opposite, in that it resolves conflict, as they are bound by sexuality, and sex is their method of communicating.