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SCENE 8 - Coggle Diagram
SCENE 8
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Summary
• Miserable Birthday Meal: Blanche, Stella, and Stanley finish the meal; Mitch is absent. Blanche tries to engage, but Stanley remains sullen.
• Conflict: Stella criticizes Stanley’s manners; he smashes his plate in anger, feeling disrespected by the women.
• Stanley’s Resentment: He believes the women think they are superior to him and resents their criticisms.
• Failed Attempt to Lift Mood: Stella lights the candles, but it doesn’t help.
• Stanley’s Cruel Gift: Stanley gives Blanche a bus ticket to Laurel, shattering her. She runs off to be sick, and Stella rebukes Stanley.
• Stella’s Labour: Stella goes into labour, and Stanley takes her to the hospital.
Dramatic Technique
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• Williams uses Stella’s labor to shift the focus away from Blanche’s distress, creating an abrupt mood change. However, Blanche reclaims attention with her dazed whispering of repetitive Spanish words, indicating her spiraling descent into unreality.
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• The background blue music, previously a recurring motif, fades out in this scene, replaced by the Varsouviana polka. The polka becomes louder and more insistent as Blanche is handed her bus ticket, symbolizing impending disaster. It is less about Blanche’s past and more of a foreshadowing of what’s to come.
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• The scene is short but charged with tension. The rapid shifts in mood heighten the sense of anticipation for the final blow to Blanche, symbolized by the bus ticket to Laurel. The mounting tension is more intense on stage, where pauses and silences enhance the audience’s sense of waiting, which is harder to convey in reading.
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