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Scene 11 - Coggle Diagram
Scene 11
Summary
- Weeks have passed
- Blanche is taking another bath while Stella packs for her
- The men are playing poker again but only Stanley concentrates on the game
- Stella has arranged for Blanche to be committed to a mental hospital
- Stella tells Eunice that she could not go on living with Stanley & believe Blanche's claims - presumably that raped her
- Blanche thinks she is going on a cruise with her old admirer Shep
- When the hospital doctor & matron arrive she panics, but reassured by the doctors courtesy
- Blanche leaves quietly with the doctor
- Stella stands weeping with her baby in her arms, but Stanley's caresses calm her
Contrasts & echoes
- Similarities to other scenes empathise how much has changed
- The paper lantern that is torn off the light by Mitch is torn off again by Stanley & Blanche cries out in physical pain
- Action = symbolic replay of the rape
- Blanche's daydream of voyage ends in her picturing her death from eating an unwashed grape & her burial at sea 'in a clean white sack' reveals her obsession with cleanliness
- Most of scene audience hear the Varsouviana polka, a constant reminder of the early tragedy in Blanche's life
- Visual reminders of the nightmare distortions of Scene 10 & echoes of jungle cries
- Stanley's presence brings back the memory of the rape
What will happen next?
- The mood of scene remains subdued, up to moment of panic when Blanche abandons her daydream & faces an incomprehensible harsh reality
- Audience & Blanche are kept in dark about what is going to happen
- Gradually become aware that Blanche is going to be committed to mental hospital
- Doctors courtesy calms Blanche & restores the subdued tone of the scene
- She says to him, 'I have always depended on the kindness of strangers' her words recall her thanking Mitch at the end of Scene 3 'I need kindness now'
- Audience realise the poignant truth that there has been very little kindness in Blanche's life
Dramatic function
- Scene is a downbeat conclusion after the melodrama of the rape - maintains a subdued mood
- Arrangement of the play into eleven short scenes enables the audience to accept the transition from the tragic climax of scene 10 to the everyday activities of packing, bathing, card-playing & discussing clothes & accessories
Blanche's tragic dignity
- Blanche's quiet dignity is in contrast to her display of vanity & her fussing over her appearance earlier in the scene
- Classical Greek tragedy demanded for its main theme the downfall of a great person through pride & arrogance
- Blanche's vanities & moral weaknesses fall away from her in the moment of departure & she achieves the dignity of a tragic heroine
- The effect is to diminish the others in the drama: the sobbing, guilt stricken Stella, begging for reassurance; the blustering, bullying Stanley; the weak, ineffectual Mitch
Conclusion
- Last scene contains elements of melodrama - Blanche's ignorance of her fate, her panic at hearing Stanley's voice, her struggle with the matron - overall effect is muted.
- Effect of trivia of Blanche's wardrobe & her costume jewellery heightened the dramatic tension
- Williams shows the instinct of a dramatist: he creates an ominous quiet to be broken all the more effectively by Blanche's last desperate attempt to escape & restored again in her dignity departure
- Stanley's sensual soothing of Stella provides an ironic final comment on events: she has traded her sister for sexual gratification
Blanche's fantasy world
- She tells Stella & Eunice 'I shall die of eating an unwashed grape one day out on the ocean'
- Blanche says this just before she is taken away by the doctor & nurse
- the words reveal Blanche's fastidious nature: she is worried about cleanliness, perhaps because the grapes have been offered from lower-class Eunice.
- Blanche assumes that act of kindness are simply her due as a member of a once-wealthy landowning family
- The words are also a flight into whimsy, reflecting a dreamlike fantasy world into which Blanche is drifting in an attempt to escape the harshness of reality