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Scene 1 Summary

The scene is the exterior of a corner building on a street called Elysian Fields, in a poor section of New Orleans with "rafish charm." The building has two ats: upstairs live Steve and Eunice, downstairs Stanley and Stella. Voices and the bluesy notes of an old piano emanate from an unseen bar around the corner. It is early May, evening.

Eunice and a Negro woman are relaxing on the steps of the building when Stanley and Mitch show up. Stanley hollers for Stella, who comes out onto the first oor landing. Stanley hurls a package of meat up to her. He and Mitch are going to meet Steve at the bowling alley; Stella soon follows to watch them. Eunice and the Negro woman in particular find something humorously suggestive in the meat-hurling episode.

Soon after Stella leaves, her sister Blanche arrives with a suitcase, looking with disbelief at a slip of paper in her hand and then at the building. She is "daintily" dressed and moves tentatively, looking and apparently feeling out of place in this neighborhood. Eunice assures her that this is where Stella lives. The Negro woman goes to the bowling alley to tell Stella of her sister's arrival while Eunice lets Blanche into the two-room at. Eunice makes small talk. We learn that Blanche is from Mississippi, that she is a teacher, that her family estate is called Belle Reve. Blanche finally asks to be left alone.

Eunice, somewhat offended, leaves to help fetch Stella. Blanche, trying to control her discomfort, nerves, and whatever else, spies a bottle of whiskey and downs a shot.

Stella returns. The women embrace, and Blanche talks feverishly, nearly hysterical. Blanche is clearly critical of the physical and social setting in which Stella lives. She tries to check her criticism, but the reunion begins on a tense and probably familiar note. Blanche tells Stella that she has been given a leave of absence from school due to her nerves, and that is why she is here in the middle of the term. She wants Stella to tell her how she looks, and in return comments on Stella's plumpness. She fusses over Stella, is surprised to learn Stella has no maid, takes another drink, worries about the privacy and decency of her staying in the apartment when Stella and Stanley are in the next room with no door, and worries whether Stanley will like her.

Stella warns Blanche that Stanley is very difierent from the men with whom Blanche is familiar back home. She is quite clearly deeply in love with him. In an outburst that builds to a crescendo of hysteria, Blanche reveals that she has lost Belle Reve and recounts how she sufiered through the agonizingly slow deaths of their parents and relatives{all while, according to Blanche, Stella was in bed with her "Polack." Stella finally cuts her off, then leaves the room, crying. Blanche begins to apologize, but the men are returning.

They discuss plans for tomorrow's poker night, then break up. Stanley enters the apartment and sizes Blanche up. The two make small talk, with Stanley in the lead and Blanche reacting. Stanley asks what happened to Blanche's marriage. Blanche replies haltingly that the "boy" died. She sits down and declares that she feels ill.

Scene 2 Summary

Six o'clock the following day. Blanche is taking a bath. Stella tells Stanley to be kind to Blanche because she has undergone the ordeal of losing Belle Reve (the family estate). Stanley is more interested in what happened to the proceeds of the supposed sale. He thinks Stella has been swindled out of her rightful share, which means that he has been swindled. Angrily he pulls all of Blanche's belongings out of her trunk, looking for a bill of sale. To him, Blanche's somewhat tawdry clothing and rhinestone jewelry look like finery{all that remains of the estate's value. Enraged at Stanley's actions, Stella storms out onto the porch.

Blanche finishes her bath. She sends Stella out to the drug store to buy a soda while she and Stanley have their discussion. With her blend of irtation, nonsense, sincerity, and desperation, Blanche manages to disarm Stanley and convince him that no fraud has been perpetrated against anyone. Blanche is horrified when Stanley opens and begins to read the old letters and love poems from her husband. Stanley lets slip that Stella is going to have a baby. Stella returns from the drugstore and some of the men arrive for their poker game. Exhilarated by the news of Stella's pregnancy and by her own handling of the situation with Stanley, Blanche follows Stella for their girls' night out.

Scene 3 Summary

It's two-thirty a.m. the same night. Steve, Pablo, Mitch, and Stanley are playing poker in the Kowalski's kitchen. Their patter goes back and forth, heavy with testosterone. Stella and Blanche return and Stella makes in- troductions. Blanche immediately determines something "superior to the others" in Mitch; Mitch's awkwardness seems to indicate an attraction on his part, as well.

Stella and Blanche share a sisterly chat in the back room while the poker game continues. Stanley, drunk, hollers at them to be quiet. Blanche turns on the radio, which again rouses Stanley's ire. The other men enjoy the rhumba, but Stanley springs up and shuts off the radio. He and Blanche stare each other down. Mitch skips the next hand and goes to the bathroom. Waiting for Stella to finish, he and Blanche talk. Blanche is a little drunk, too. They discuss Mitch's sick mother, the sincerity of sick and sorrowful people, and the inscription on Mitch's cigarette case. Blanche claims that she is actually younger than Stella. She asks Mitch to put a Chinese lantern she has bought over the naked bulb. As they talk Stanley is growing more annoyed at Mitch's absence. Stella leaves the bathroom and Blanche impulsively turns the radio back on. Stanley leaps up, rushes to the radio, and hurls it out the window.

Stella yells at Stanley and he begins to beat her. The men pull him off. Blanche takes Stella and some clothes to Eunice's apartment upstairs. Stanley goes limp and seems confused, but when the men try to force him into the shower to sober him up he fights them off. They grab their winnings and leave.

Stanley stumbles out of the bathroom, calling for Stella. He phones upstairs, then phones again, before hurling the phone to the oor. Half-dressed he stumbles out to the street and calls for her again and again: "STELL- LAHHHHH!" Eunice gives him a piece of her mind, but to no avail. Finally, Stella slips out of the apartment and down to where Stanley is. They stare at each other and then rush together with "animal moans." He falls to his knees, caresses her face and belly, then lifts her up and carries her into their at.

Blanche emerges from Eunice's at, looking for Stella. She stops short at the entrance to the downstairs at. Mitch returns and tells her not to worry, that the two are crazy about each other. He offers her a cigarette. She thanks him for his kindness.

Scene 4 Summary

Early the next morning, Stella lies serenely in the bedroom, her face aglow. Blanche, who has not slept, enters the apartment. She demands to know how Stella could go back and spend the night with Stanley after what he did to her. Stella feels Blanche is making a big issue out of nothing. Yet Blanche goes on about how she must figure out a way to get them both out of this situation, how she recently ran into an old friend who struck it rich in oil, and perhaps he would be able to help them. Stella pays little attention to what Blanche says; she has no desire to leave. She says that Blanche merely saw Stanley at his worst. Blanche feels she saw at his most characteristic{and this is what terrifies her.

Blanche simply cannot understand how a woman raised in Belle Reve could choose to live her life with a man who has "not one particle" of a gentleman in him, about whom there is "something downright{bestial..."

Stella's reply is that "there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark{that sort of make everything else seem{unimportant." This is just desire, says Blanche, and not a basis for marriage.

A train approaches, and while it roars past Stanley enters the at unheard. Not knowing that Stanley is listening, Blanche holds nothing back.

She describes him as common, an animal, ape-like, a primitive brute. Stella listens coldly. Under cover of another passing train, Stanley slips out of the apartment, then enters it noisily. Stella runs to Stanley and embraces him fiercely. Stanley grins at Blanche.

Scene 5 Summary

It is mid-August. Stella and Blanche are in the bedroom. Blanche finishes writing an utterly fabricated letter to the old friend she recently ran into, then bursts into laughter. She reads from the letter to Stella, breaking off when the noise of Steve and Eunice's fighting upstairs grows too loud. Eunice storms off to a bar around the corner. Nursing a bruise on his forehead, Steve follows her. Stanley enters the apartment in full bowling regalia. He is rude to Blanche and insinuates some knowledge of her past. Finally, he asks her if she knows a certain man. This man often travels to Blanche's town, and claims she was often a client of a disreputable hotel. Blanche denies it, insisting the man must have confused her with someone else. Stanley says he'll have the man check on it. He heads off to the bar, telling Stella to meet him there.

Blanche is shaken to the core by Stanley's remarks. Stella doesn't seem to take much notice. Blanche demands to know what Stella has heard about her, what people have been saying. Stella doesn't know what she's talking about. Blanche admits she was not "so good" the last two years, as she was losing Belle Reve. She quite lucidly describes herself as soft, dependent, reliant on Chinese lanterns and light colors. She admits that she no longer has the youth or beauty to glow in the soft light. Stella doesn't want to hear her talk like this.

Stella brings Blanche a drink. She likes to wait on Blanche; it reminds her of their childhood. Blanche becomes hysterical, promising to leave soon, before Stanley throws her out. Stella calms her for a moment, but when she accidentally spills her drink slightly on her skirt, Blanche begins to shriek.

She is shaking and tries to laugh it off. At last she admits that she is nervous about her relationship with Mitch. She has been very prim and proper with him; she wants his respect, but doesn't want him to lose interest. She wants him very badly, needs him as a stabilizing force. Stella assures her that it will happen. She kisses her older sister and runs off to meet Stanley.

Blanche sits alone in the apartment and waits. A young man comes to the door collecting for the newspaper. Blanche irts with him, offers him a drink, and generally works her wiles. The young man is very nervous and would like to leave. Blanche declares that he looks like an Arabian prince.

She kisses him on the lips then sends him on his way. "I've got to be good," she says, "and keep my hands off children." A few moments later, Mitch appears with a bunch of roses. She accepts them irtatiously while he glows.

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