A Streetcar Named Desire

Stella is 25 years old and Blanche’s younger sister by five years. At the beginning of the play, she tends to be quiet as Blanche dictates conversations and talks over her. Her abusive marriage to Stanley seems predicated on lust and desire, and she enjoys his roughness, how he offers her a different kind of life than the one she was given at birth. At first, Stella is a mostly dismissive of her sister’s lofty monologues and criticisms, although her tendency to care for and fuss over Stella is apparent. As the play progresses, Stella begins thinking and acting more autonomously, even going so far as to criticize Stanley’s sloppy manners and tell him to “[g]o and wash up and then help [her] clear the table” (131). 

She gives birth to her baby girl near the end of the play, just before she decides (or is influenced to decide) to send her sister off for mental care. It is not until the Doctor and Nurse arrive that the weight of things dawns on her, and she sobs as she yells, “What have I done to my sister?” (176). The opportunity for her to change her own life and her sister’s life for the better is thwarted when, at the end of the play, Stanley kneels before her, and the audience is left to assume that life will continue as it was at Elysian Fields.

Stanley is a grotesque emblem of misogyny, violence, and brute power. Williams describes how “[a]nimal joy in his being is implicit in all his movements and attitudes” (24). He is often drunk, very loud, and wholly stubborn. His word is the final word. He enjoys playing poker with his friends and going bowling, and his clothes are as vividly colored as his personality.

His disdain for Blanche is clear from the start, likely because her outspoken nature challenges and threatens him. When Blanche turns on the radio twice, against his will, he simply throws the machine out the window. Early on he suspects Blanche has cheated him out of money and that he is owed something for Belle Reve. This sends him on a witch-hunt, during which he scrapes up gossip about Blanche’s life in Laurel and uses it against her. He proceeds to share this information with both Stella and Mitch, Blanche’s love interest. On the night that Stella is in the hospital going into labor, Stanley starts an argument with Blanche and rapes her.  

The control he exerts over the other characters in the play reaches far and wide, for, as Blanche says, he is the “executioner” (111). However, Stanley’s character is twice made powerless: on poker night Stella leaves him, and at the end of the play, he clings to Stella as she cries uncontrollably. More than anything, these moments seem to suggest his capacity for complex human emotion, which he constantly refuses.

Mitch is a friend of Stanley’s and the love interest of Blanche. He is introduced in the first scene, talking to Stanley about a potential poker night. He leaves the game early to go home and take care of his sick mother. Blanche picks up on his sensitivity, which sits in stark contrast to his friends. He had a lover pass away, and he shares this with Blanche one evening during a poker game. This moment of intimacy sparks their romance. The conversations he has with Blanche are some of the most emotionally honest and meaningful in the play. He is a close listener and is attentive to how Blanche’s history has shaped her. He tells her: “I like you to be exactly the way that you are, because in all my—experience—I have never known anyone like you” (103). 

Their romance is shattered when Stanley tells Mitch about Blanche’s past. Stanley’s intervention ruins Mitch, and on the day of Blanche’s leaving, he is unable to speak or look up. His gazed remains focused on the table.

Eunice is the Kowalski’s upstairs neighbor and also their landlord. She is married to Steve. During one of the play’s scenes, she and Steve argue about his infidelity, but they later make up at the local bar. They seem to have an otherwise healthy relationship. Eunice is a supportive of Stella, harboring her when Stanley becomes violent and helping to take care of the baby once Stella has given birth.

Steve is Eunice’s husband and a friend of the Kowalski’s. He is seen at the Kowalski’s flat playing poker twice, and he helps try to sober Stanley on the night of his outburst. Steve speaks the final line of the play, almost identically repeating a kind of poker he’d mentioned in the first poker scene: “This game is seven-card stud” (179).