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A Streetcar Named Desire

by Tennessee Williams

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Editor's Choice

Explain the ironies in the following passage from scene 4 where Blanche objects to Stanley.

There's something downright bestial about him! . . . He acts like an animal, has an animal's habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one! There's even something sub-human something not quite to the stage of humanity yet! Yes, something ape-like about him, like one of the pictures I've seen in anthropological studies! Thousands and thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is Stanley Kowalski survivor of the Stone Age! Bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle! . . . Maybe he'll strike you or maybe he'll grunt and kiss you!

Quick answer:

The passage is ironic because Blanche criticizes Stanley's brutish behavior while embodying similar traits herself, such as sexual desires and excessive drinking. Blanche condemns Stanley's lack of refinement and animalistic tendencies, yet she hides her own inappropriate past, including being fired for an affair with a student and being evicted from a motel for multiple sexual encounters. Additionally, Blanche's harsh judgment contrasts with Stella's attraction to Stanley's raw masculinity.

Expert Answers

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Ever since she arrived to stay, Blanche has been a regular witness to Stanley's neanderthal behavior. He's a hulking great brute, physically and verbally abusive, always ready to pick a fight with anyone who crosses him. His crude manners appall Blanche, the delicate, refined Southern belle. The two are like chalk and cheese in every conceivable respect, and their mutual hostility and antagonism is there right from the start. Blanche didn't need to see Stanley throw a packet of meat to Stella to know what kind of a primitive throwback he is.

What's ironic in all of this is that Stanley's behavior, like Blanche's, stems from his various desires—to be lord and master in his own place, to be respected, to live up to society's expectations of how a man should behave. It's just that Stanley expresses those desires in a completely different way to the elegant, educated Blanche. Even more ironically, Blanche and Stanley share the most intense desire of all—to secure the sympathy of Stella, who's caught up in the middle of their epic battle of wills.

A further irony in Blanche's litany of complaints against Stanley's ape-like regression is that she's not saying anything that Stella doesn't already know. She seems to overlook the fact that Stella's strongly attracted to Stanley precisely because of his overpowering, thuggish masculinity. Blanche thinks that by telling Stella some home truths about Stanley she'll somehow manage to get her sister to see sense, to realize that she's too good for Stanley and quit this abusive relationship. However, she's sorely mistaken in her assumption; Stella's going nowhere. Despite everything, her bond with Stanley is strong and set to get even stronger with the imminent birth of their child. No amount of colorful insults that portray Stanley as an example of evolution in reverse is going to make the slightest bit of difference.

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