On their wedding night, Stanley Kowalski smashed all the lightbulbs in their apartment using the heel of Stella's slipper, an act Stella found thrilling and exciting, representing his raw, physical nature and dominance which she accepts as part of their passionate, yet volatile, relationship.
What did Stanley do on his and Stella's wedding night? On their wedding night, Stanley took Stella's slipper and broke all of the lightbulbs in the apartment. It represents him controlling what Stella sees.
"'Stanley's always smashed things. Why, on our wedding night- soon as we came in here- he snatched off my slippers and rushed about the place smashing lightbulbs with it. '"
How did Stella react to what Stanley did on their wedding night? She was thrilled by Stanley smashing lightbulbs with a shoe.
Revelations about Blanche
Stanley then reveals to Stella that Blanche was fired from her teaching job for having sex with a student. The incident created a huge scandal in Laurel. It has also been confirmed that she lived at a hotel known for prostitution (the Flamingo).
We see that despite his abuse and brutish disposition, in his primal way, Stanley loves and is possessive about Stella. Stella in turn does defend him frequently to Blanche, despite agreeing with her. While Stella is not a protagonist, her hamartia is Stanely.
Key interpretation. Stanley's refusal to kiss Stella in front of Blanche could show that he is inhibited in Blanche's presence, or that he resents his wife for allowing her to stay with them.
Tossing the package of meat symbolically captures Stanley and Stella's sexual relationship: he hurls himself physically at her, and she accepts delightedly. Raw physical lust forms a vital part of the life-blood of New Orleans, and of their relationship.
Blanche also seeks rejuvenation, as though the bathwater were a Fountain of Youth. But although bathing may provide a temporary respite, she can never escape the past. In contrast with Blanche's use of bathing to escape reality, the men dunk Stanley in the shower to sober him up so that he face the real world.
Stella Kowalski: Blanche's younger sister, about twenty-five years old, she is married to Stanley and lives in the French Quarter of New Orleans. As the play opens we learn that she is pregnant with their first child.
Stanley is an enigmatic man. He is proven to be egotistically confident, and believes that he is a shrewd, intelligent man. He is a misogynist man with traditional beliefs about marriage, despite cheating on his wife, Stella. He is prone to violent, aggressive outbursts and emotional instability.
In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche was married to Allan Grey, a closeted gay man, and starts, while living in Belle Reeve to date Mitch, a sensitive mama's boy, during her time in New Orleans.
Stella is drawn to Stanley's brute, animal sexuality, and he is drawn to her traditional, domestic, feminine sexuality. Stella is pregnant: her sexuality is deeply tied to both womanliness and motherhood. Even though Stanley is violent to Stella, their sexual dynamic keeps them together.
Stanley Hudson: [Speaking to the camera] Over the course of this documentary I've had 3 affairs.
Stanley is the embodiment of passionate manhood; nevertheless he also displays elements of self-made masculinity; he emphasises his role as a breadwinner when he ostentatiously throws a bloody package of meat at his wife in the opening scene.
However, in the film adaptation, it is shown that Stella leaves him and takes their child (although it is ambiguous if she goes back to him). This, however, was required under the censorship code then in force. Later television versions restored the original stage version, which always has her staying with him.
Blanche's Incarceration
She was hospitalized several times and eventually received a lobotomy, which left her unable to care for herself. Tennessee spent much of his own money caring for her and dealt with the guilt of her predicament his whole life.
Following the death of Allan Grey, Blanche's life turns for the worse, she spends the last of her youth watching the rest of her family die out and loses Belle Reve due to bankruptcy. She also loses her job as an English teacher at a local high school for sleeping with a seventeen-year-old student.
Blanche DuBois, the tragic heroine of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, has always been read as either "mad" from the start of the play or as a character who descends into "madness." We argue that Streetcar adumbrates elements of trauma theory, specifically symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder such as ...
A very apparent character trait of Stanley is his love for his wife, Stella.
Stella's pregnancy
At the same time, we learn that Stella is pregnant. She wants them to keep this secret from Blanche. Stella also encourages Stanley to praise Blanche's appearance because she says Blanche's nerves are shattered.
Stanley calls Blanche a tiger during the rape scene and Williams used the same comparison in an interview: “She was a tiger, she had much more strength than him and she surrendered it to him out of desire” (Williams 1986, 110).
She is desperate for attention and has a history of sexual promiscuity. She was formerly a teacher, who was fired for having an affair with one of her teenaged students. Williams saw her as being 30 years of age.
The dramatic irony in Stella's statement lies in her juxtaposition of "darkness" with her physical interactions with Stanley. For Stella, the physical and sexual aspects of her relationship with Stanley, which occur "in the dark," justify and overshadow his violent behavior.
The blue piano stands for the callous vitality of the Vieux Carré (also known as the French Quarter) of New Orleans, while the Varsouviana polka recalls the tragedy in Blanche's past.