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This is another classic from my high school days that seems wasted on youth. How can a fifteen-year-old in prep school appreciate the desperation and human frailty of Blanche DuBois? Or the dichotomy inherent in Stanley Kowalski's passionate brutality?
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BLANCHE: What you are talking about is brutal desire--just--Desire!--the name of that rattle-trap street-car that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another...
STELLA: Haven't you ever ridden on that street-car?
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Many will have seen either the stage or film versions of Streetcar, but reading through Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning play allows for the depression to really set in. Readers may even recognize qualities in friends and family members approximating those of alcoholism or domestic violence.
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BLANCHE: A hot bath and a long, cold drink always give me a brand new outlook on life!
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There are so many great dialogue exchanges here, outside of the classic "kindness of strangers" quote. I'll snip a few of my favorites.
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MITCH: You ought to lay off his liquor. He says you been lapping it up all summer like a wild-cat!
BLANCHE: What a fantastic statement! Fantastic of him to say it, fantastic of you to repeat it!
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The abusive domestic relationship seemed a common theme in mid-20th Century America; witness both Streetcar and The Honeymooners. "One of these days...POW! Right in the kisser! One of these days Alice, straight to the Moon!"
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STANLEY: When we first met, me and you, you thought I was common. How right you was, baby. I was common as dirt. You showed me the snapshot of the place with the columns. I pulled you down off them columns and how you loved it.
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Very easy to get through this in a sitting or two. Very hard not to be emotionally moved, even if the dénouement, vis-a-vis Stanley and Blanche, was not obvious to me after that first reading many years ago.
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BLANCHE: Don't you just love these long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn't just an hour--but a little piece of eternity dropped into your hands--and who knows what to do with it?
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Postscript: My own copy is the mid-80s Signet printing, which includes a 4-page Introduction by the author.
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"Streetcar Named Desire/Coles Notes" Overview
The story of Blanche DuBois and her last grasp at happiness, and of Stanley Kowalski, the one who destroyed her chance.
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