- transferverbChapter 1 →
To change from one streetcar (or bus) line to another in order to continue a journey to a different destination.
“They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at — Elysian Fields!”
- Elysian FieldsnounChapter 1 →
In this play, the name of the New Orleans street where Stanley and Stella live; it also echoes the classical paradise of the dead, hinting at themes of illusion and death.
“They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at — Elysian Fields!”
- vulnerableadjectiveChapter 2 →
Easily hurt emotionally or physically; open to being wounded or taken advantage of by others.
“I hurt him the way that you would like to hurt me, but you can't! I'm not young and vulnerable any more.”
- re-bopnounChapter 2 →
Slang, mid-twentieth century, for nonsense or foolish talk; here Stanley uses it to tell Blanche to stop her evasive chatter and get to the point.
“Now let's cut the re-bop!”
- realismnounChapter 3 →
Showing or accepting things exactly as they are, without softening or romanticizing them; Blanche rejects this in favor of beautiful illusions.
“I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic!”
- misrepresentverbChapter 3 →
To give a false or misleading account of something; to describe a person or situation in a way that is not true.
“I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the truth, I tell what ought to be truth.”
- brutesnounChapter 4 →
People who behave in a savage, crude, or animalistic way, without refinement or sensitivity; Blanche uses the word to describe Stanley and men like him.
“Don't—don't hang back with the brutes!”
- hang backphraseChapter 4 →
To stay behind or remain with a group instead of moving forward or away; here it means choosing to stay in a rough, uncivilized world rather than escaping it.
“Don't—don't hang back with the brutes!”
- vividadjectiveChapter 4 →
Here used to mean intensely alive, stirred up, or emotionally charged; Stella means Stanley makes her feel powerfully and overwhelmingly alive.
“I can't help it, he makes me so—vivid.”
- self-sufficientadjectiveChapter 5 →
Able to take care of oneself without needing help or support from others; emotionally or practically independent.
“I never was hard or self-sufficient enough.”
- shimmerverbChapter 5 →
To shine with a soft, wavering, delicate light; Blanche uses it to describe how gentle, fragile people must radiate a kind of glow to survive in the world.
“soft people have got to shimmer and glow — they've got to put on soft colors, the colors of butterfly wings”
- deceiveverbChapter 5 →
To make someone believe something that is not true; to create a false impression in another person's mind.
“I want to deceive him enough to make him — want me.”
- Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soirphraseChapter 5 →
A French phrase meaning 'Do you want to sleep with me tonight?'; Blanche uses it to flirtatiously proposition a young man, then answers for him.
“Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir? You don't need to answer that. I'll answer it for you. Oui!”
- foreclosurenoun
A legal process in which a lender takes ownership of a property because the borrower has failed to keep up with debt payments; this is how Belle Reve was lost.
- plantationnoun
A large estate, especially in the American South, historically worked by enslaved people and associated with wealth and aristocratic social status.
- facadenoun
A false outward appearance designed to hide the truth about a person; the polished, respectable image someone shows the world while concealing a very different reality.
- promiscuitynoun
A pattern of casual sexual relationships with many different partners, without lasting commitment; one of the secrets from Blanche's past that Stanley uncovers.
- committedverb
Formally sent to a psychiatric hospital or asylum by legal or medical authority, against one's will if necessary.
- asylumnoun
An institution, often state-run, where people with severe mental illness are confined and treated; in this period the word carried a strong stigma.
- gentleman callerphrase
An old-fashioned Southern term for a man who visits a woman at home with romantic intentions; Blanche uses it to romanticize and escape from the grim reality around her.
A Streetcar Named DesirePlay by Tennessee Williams