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Kelso High School

Scene 11 in "A Streetcar named Desire" by Tennessee Williams serves as a subdued coda to the previous dramatic events, with Blanche's descent into madness and her commitment to a mental hospital. The scene explores the reversal of roles between Blanche and Stella, the consequences of the rape, and the tension between illusion and reality. The play concludes with a symbol of deception and victory.

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Kelso High School

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  1. Kelso High School A Streetcar named Desire by Tennessee Williams

  2. Scene 11 • This scene is a downbeat coda ( a concluding passage which provides a satisfying ending) to the melodrama of the rape in the previous scene • The mood is subdued, a mood intensified by the fact that the previous scene with the poker players was loud and noisy (scene 3)

  3. Differences between Sc 3 and Sc 11 • Stella has been crying • All the poker players apart from Stanley have lost their boisterous good humour • They rise in an act of courtesy when Blanche passes through the room • Stanley again tears down the paper lantern. Blanche cries out as though in physical pain. His action can be seen as a symbolic replay of the rape

  4. Why is this scene particularly effective? • Like Blanche, the audience too is kept in the dark about what is going to happen • It is only gradually that the audience are made aware that Blanche is being committed to a mental hospital • Blanche’s quiet dignity at the end is in sharp contrast to her earlier displays of vanity and fussing over her appearance • The trivia of Blanche’s wardrobe and her costume jewellery is to heighten the dramatic tension of what is about to happen

  5. Why is this scene particularly effective? • Blanche’s final words, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” reveals the sad truth that there has been very little kindness in Blanche’s life • Blanche’s behaviour towards the poker players conveys the way in which being raped by Stanley has scarred her. At the start of the play she performs for his friends, by the end she hides from their gaze and hopes they won’t notice her

  6. Why is this scene particularly effective? • The roles of the two sisters reverse as Stella admits that she may have entered a world of make-believe when she acknowledges that she cannot believe Blanche’s story about the rape and continue to live with Stanley. Stella explains that, quite simply, if she is to go on living with Stanley she must believe that the story of the rape is the invention of a mentally unstable woman. Blanche’s descent into madness saves Stella from the truth

  7. Why is this scene particularly effective? • Stella’s tears at the end are shed not only for her sister but also for the complexity and tension between illusion and reality, between Blanche’s story and Stella’s own understanding of her life • She also cries because part of her is glad to see Blanche go

  8. Why is this scene particularly effective? • The offstage announcement that another poker game (“seven card stud”) is about to commence ends the play with a symbol of the deception and bluffing that has taken place in the Kowalski house • The image of Stanley and Stella together at the end symbolises Stanley has won – he is the triumphant victor

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