Blanche DuBois
Blanche is Stella's older sister, who was a high school English teacher in Laurel, Mississippi, until she was forced to leave her post.
Blanche is an eccentric, fragile woman around the age of thirty. After losing Belle Reve, the DuBois family home, Blanche arrives in New Orleans at the Kowalski apartment and eventually reveals that she is completely destitute. Though she has strong sexual urges and has had many lovers, she puts on the airs of a woman who has never known indignity. She avoids reality, preferring to live in her own imagination. As the play progresses, Blanche's instability grows along with her misfortune. Stanley sees through Blanche and finds out the details of her past, destroying her relationship with his friend Mitch. Stanley also destroys what's left of Blanche by raping her and then having her committed to an insane asylum.
A list of interesting quotes:
"Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."
"But some things are not forgivable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable! It is the one unforgivable thing, in my opinion, and the one thing of which I have never, never been guilty."
"I know I fib a good deal. After all, a woman's charm is 50% illusion."
"Why, they told me to take a streetcar named Desire and then transfer to one called Cemetery and ride six blocks and get off at Elysian Fields."
"You're married to a madman. [Stella talks] What you are talking about is desire - just brutal Desire. The name of that rattle-trap streetcar that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another."
"May I speak plainly?... If you'll forgive me, he's common... He's like an animal. He has an animal's habits. There's even something subhuman about him. Thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is. Stanley Kowalski, survivor of the Stone Age, bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle. And you - you here waiting for him. Maybe he'll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you, that's if kisses have been discovered yet. His poker night you call it. This party of apes."
"Marry me, Mitch"
"I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action."
"I'm very adaptable to circumstances"
"Tarantula was the name of it. I stayed at a hotel called the Tarantula Arms. [...] Yes, a big spider. That's where I brought my victims. Yes, I've had many meetings with strangers."
"I've got to be near you, Stella. I've got to be with people. I can't be alone because... Because as you must have noticed, I... I'm not very well."
Blanche explains to Stella that she cannot stay in a hotel because she can’t bear to be alone. This is closer to the truth than the reason Blanche tells herself, that she needs to stay with Stella because she is out of money. The audience comes to understand many of Blanche’s actions are driven by her extreme loneliness. Stella notices that Blanche is agitated and overwrought, and Blanche makes numerous references to her nerves. In addition, Blanche’s attraction to Mitch is mainly motivated by the desire to not be alone rather than an interest in him in particular.
"I - I - I took the blows... on my face and my body. All of those deaths, the long parade to the graveyard. Father, Mother, Margaret, that dreadful way... You just came home in time for funerals, Stella. And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. How do you think all that sickness and dying was paid for? Death is expensive, Miss Stella. And I, with my pitiful salary at the school... Yes, accuse me. Stand there and stare at me, thinking I let the place go. I let the place go? Where were you? In there with your Polack."
Further analysis
When the play begins, Blanche is already a fallen woman in society’s eyes. Her family fortune and estate are gone, she lost her young husband to suicide years earlier, and she is a social pariah due to her indiscrete sexual behavior. She also has a bad drinking problem, which she covers up poorly. Behind her veneer of social snobbery and sexual propriety, Blanche is an insecure, dislocated individual. She is an aging Southern belle who lives in a state of perpetual panic about her fading beauty. Her manner is dainty and frail, and she sports a wardrobe of showy but cheap evening clothes. Stanley quickly sees through Blanche’s act and seeks out information about her past.
In the Kowalski household, Blanche pretends to be a woman who has never known indignity. Her false propriety is not simply snobbery, however; it constitutes a calculated attempt to make herself appear attractive to new male suitors. Blanche depends on male sexual admiration for her sense of self-esteem, which means that she has often succumbed to passion. By marrying, Blanche hopes to escape poverty and the bad reputation that haunts her. But because the chivalric Southern gentleman savior and caretaker (represented by Shep Huntleigh) she hopes will rescue her is extinct, Blanche is left with no realistic possibility of future happiness. As Blanche sees it, Mitch is her only chance for contentment, even though he is far from her ideal.
Stanley’s relentless persecution of Blanche foils her pursuit of Mitch as well as her attempts to shield herself from the harsh truth of her situation. The play chronicles the subsequent crumbling of Blanche’s self-image and sanity. Stanley himself takes the final stabs at Blanche, destroying the remainder of her sexual and mental esteem by raping her and then committing her to an insane asylum. In the end, Blanche blindly allows herself to be led away by a kind doctor, ignoring her sister’s cries. This final image is the sad culmination of Blanche’s vanity and total dependence upon men for happiness.
Stella Kowalski
Blanche’s younger sister, about twenty-five years old and of a mild disposition that visibly sets her apart from her more vulgar neighbours. Stella possesses the same timeworn aristocratic heritage as Blanche, but she jumped the sinking ship in her late teens and left Mississippi for New Orleans. There, Stella married lower-class Stanley, with whom she shares a robust sexual relationship. Stella’s union with Stanley is both animal and spiritual, violent but renewing. After Blanche’s arrival, Stella is torn between her sister and her husband. Eventually, she stands by Stanley, perhaps in part because she gives birth to his child near the play’s end. While she loves and pities Blanche, she cannot bring herself to believe Blanche’s accusations that Stanley dislikes Blanche, and she eventually dismisses Blanche’s claim that Stanley raped her. Stella’s denial of reality at the play’s end shows that she has more in common with her sister than she thinks.
A list of interesting quotes:
"You never did give me a chance to say much, Blanche. So I just got in the habit of being quiet around you"
In Scene One, Stella honestly shares her experience growing up with Blanche on the plantation called Belle Reve. In fact, Stella is always honest with Blanche. The personalities of Stella and Blanche are in sharp contrast with each other throughout the play. Blanche, the more talkative of the two, is the sister of words, while Stella is the sister of action.
"I’m going to try to keep Blanche out till the party breaks up because I don’t know how she would take it. So we’ll go out to one of the little places in the Quarter afterwards and you’d better give me some money."
Stella is trying to protect her fragile sister from the roughness of the night’s poker game. She’s taking her out to dinner and then to a show. Stanley is not happy about it because he has to eat a cold dinner alone. He is already beginning to resent Blanche’s presence in their household and doesn't trust her delicate persona.
"This is my house and I’ll talk as much as I want to!"
In a rare moment of dominance, Stella reminds her husband that he can’t tell her what or what not to do. Stanley has just ordered Stella and Blanche to stop talking while the men play poker, but Stella makes clear that she is her own boss in her own home.
"He didn’t know what he was doing . . . He was as good as a lamb when I came back and he’s really very, very ashamed of himself."
Stella makes excuses for Stanley’s abusive behavior the night before as she talks to Blanche. Blanche criticizes her for returning home and sleeping with Stanley after such violent behavior. For Stella as for Stanley, the line between sexuality and physical violence blurs and Stella admits that Stanley has always been volatile. Blanche acts appalled but secretly feels attracted. As usual, her reaction is dramatic but dishonest.
"You take it for granted that I am in something that I want to get out of."
Stella says this more than once to Blanche when Blanche suggests that they need to find a way to “get us both out.” This is the main point of contention between the sisters. Blanche considers Stella’s life and marriage intolerable or pretends to. Stella defends and clings to her marriage. She is satisfied with her home and her marriage, no matter how both appear to others. Stella is comfortable in her own skin and life, while Blanche is not.
"But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark—that sort of make everything else seem—unimportant."
Stella defends her relationship with Stanley as she argues with Blanche. Blanche has just suggested that Stella fell in love with Stanley in uniform but fails to look at the reality of what he truly is: a violent brute. Stella, like her husband, is driven by her sexuality and considers it paramount to a good life and a good marriage. These lines reveal Stella’s true feelings and explain her loyalty in the face of physical abuse.
"What have I done to my sister? Oh, God, what have I done to my sister?"
These are among Stella’s final words in the play, spoken to Eunice as the doctor and matron lead Blanche out of the apartment to be taken to a mental institution. She is afraid that her and Stanley’s actions are hurting Blanche and feels responsible for the mental breakdown her sister has experienced.
Further analysis
Stella is Blanche’s younger sister, but in many ways, she behaves like the elder of the two. Stella appears more grounded, more tolerant, and less sensitive than Blanche; she also seems to be a natural nurturer who “enjoys waiting on” and doing things for her sister. Stella performs kind acts for others, such as sending Mitch’s sick mother a custard. Even before she becomes a mother, Stella is maternal.
Despite their differences, Stella still has much in common with her sister. Like Blanche, Stella has refined tastes and sensibilities, poking gentle fun at Stanley’s poker buddies and disliking Stanley’s pawing her in front of people. Also like Blanche, Stella can be deceitful when it suits her, admitting, “I glossed things over in my letters,” and not telling Stanley of Blanche’s arrival. Most of all, like Blanche, Stella is a sensual being. She may have found Stanley “common” when they first met, but she now has a strong visceral and physical connection to him that borders on the obsessive.
However, the nature of Stella’s carnal appetite differs from her sister’s. Stella's sexual drive is centered on attraction to and love for one individual (Stanley), as opposed to Blanche, whose fleeting encounters with soldiers and traveling salesmen suggests she craves sexual attention in general—especially from young men, stand-ins for her lost, young husband. Also, while Blanche abhors roughhousing, violent behavior arouses Stella. She says she found it thrilling when Stanley smashed the light bulbs on their wedding night. After their fight in Scene Three, Stella returns to Stanley’s arms in response to his screaming her name “with heaven-splitting violence.”
Throughout the play, Stella is placed between Blanche and Stanley. Blanche, with whom she shares a background and upbringing, represents her past; Stanley, with whom she is deeply in love/lust, represents her present and her future, as the play’s ending indicates. By having Blanche committed to a mental institution, thus choosing Stanley, Stella seems to be displaying her practical side, which prompted her to escape the bankrupt Belle Reve life years ago and reminds her she now has a dependent child to support. However, Stella’s exchange with Eunice about the rape is oddly ambiguous: “I couldn’t believe it and go on living with Stanley,” she says, to which Eunice responds, “Don’t you ever believe it…you have to go on.” If Stella does have doubts about Stanley’s innocence, her disregard of Blanche’s accusation suggests that she, like Blanche, is capable of denying the truth when it suits her. To paraphrase her sister, Stella doesn’t want realism, she wants magic.
Stanley Kowalski
The husband of Stella. Stanley is the epitome of vital force. He is loyal to his friends, passionate to his wife, and heartlessly cruel to Blanche. With his Polish ancestry, he represents the new, heterogeneous America. He sees himself as a social leveler, and wishes to destroy Blanche’s social pretensions. Around thirty years of age, Stanley, who fought in World War II, now works as an auto-parts salesman. Practicality is his forte, and he has no patience for Blanche’s distortions of the truth. He lacks ideals and imagination. By the play’s end, he is a disturbing degenerate: he beats his wife and rapes his sister-in-law. Horrifyingly, he shows no remorse. Yet, Blanche is an outcast from society, while Stanley is the proud family man.
A list of interesting quotes
"It looks to me like you have been swindled, baby, and when you’re swindled under the Napoleonic code I’m swindled too. And I don’t like to be swindled."
Stanley talks to Stella about the family property that Blanche has lost. He has just complained to Stella that Blanche doesn’t seem to have any documents that show a sale or transfer of the property. He is accusing Blanche of cheating them out of money that should rightfully be shared by the three of them. This belief is the seed of Stanley’s resentment of Blanche—that she is dishonest and has spent their money on clothes and jewellery for herself.
Blanche: "You’re simple, straightforward, and honest, a little on the primitive side I should think. To interest you a woman would have to—[She pauses with an indefinite gesture.]" Stanley: "[slowly] Lay . . . her cards on the table."
This exchange between Blanche and Stanley reveals they are opposites, as indicated by the list of qualities noted by Blanche. There is also a dangerous miscommunication occurring. While Blanche believes she is flirting the way she does with most men, Stanley’s words reveal he has something more than flirting in mind.
"Stell-lahhhh! . . . I want my baby down here. Stella, Stella!"
After Stella leaves Stanley and goes to Eunice’s, Stanley stumbles onto the sidewalk, drunk, soaking wet, and half dressed, and screams this line, perhaps the most famous line of the play, toward Eunice’s apartment window. His emotional outburst epitomizes the psychological hold he has on Stella. Stanley realizes that he has temporarily lost Stella, but he knows that if he begs, she will return to him. Stella can’t help herself, and Stanley knows it.
"Don’t ever talk that way to me! “Pig—Polak—disgusting—vulgar—greasy!”—them kind of words have been on your tongue and your sister’s too much around here. What do you two think you are? A pair of queens? Remember what Huey Long said—“Every man is a King!” And I am the king around here, so don’t forget it!"
Blanche’s birthday party has been ruined by Mitch not showing up and Stanley is strutting his ego around at the evening’s end, hurling plates onto the floor as he yells at Stella and Blanche. He accuses them of disrespecting him because of his heritage and manners. He wants to ensure they understand that he is the master of his house. Stanley is right, they do not respect him, and the eruption of raw emotions creates fear in the sisters and suspense for the audience.
"Ha-ha! Rain from heaven! [He extends the bottle toward her] Shall we bury the hatchet and make it a loving-cup? Huh?"
Stanley and Blanche are alone in Scene Ten because Stella is in the hospital. He has just opened a bottle of beer and a “geyser of foam” shoots up, a sexual image foreshadowing the action to follow. Stanley has just become a father, so he wants to celebrate. Stanley’s invitation is loaded with double entendre, a verbal jousting that he and Blanche have demonstrated throughout the play.
"I’ve been on to you from the start! Not once did you pull any wool over this boy’s eyes. You come in here and sprinkle the place with powder and spray perfume and cover the light-bulb with a paper lantern, and lo and behold the place has turned into Egypt and you and the Queen of the Nile!"
Fueled by alcohol, the excitement of the new baby, and finally being alone with Blanche, Stanley is beginning to let Blanche hear what he truly thinks of her. Immediately after these lines, Stanley laughs cruelly at Blanche. The stage directions indicate that the shadows are “of a grotesque and menacing form.” Stanley’s laughter is the beginning of the rape.
Further analysis
Audience members may well see Stanley as an egalitarian hero at the play’s start. He is loyal to his friends and passionate to his wife. Stanley possesses an animalistic physical vigor that is evident in his love of work, of fighting, and of sex. His family is from Poland, and several times he expresses his outrage at being called “Polack” and other derogatory names. When Blanche calls him a “Polack,” he makes her look old-fashioned and ignorant by asserting that he was born in America, is an American, and can only be called “Polish.” Stanley represents the new, heterogeneous America to which Blanche doesn’t belong, because she is a relic from a defunct social hierarchy. He sees himself as a social leveler, as he tells Stella in Scene Eight.
Stanley’s intense hatred of Blanche is motivated in part by the aristocratic past Blanche represents. He also (rightly) sees her as untrustworthy and does not appreciate the way she attempts to fool him and his friends into thinking she is better than they are. Stanley’s animosity toward Blanche manifests itself in all of his actions toward her—his investigations of her past, his birthday gift to her, his sabotage of her relationship with Mitch.
In the end, Stanley’s down-to-earth character proves harmfully crude and brutish. His chief amusements are gambling, bowling, sex, and drinking, and he lacks ideals and imagination. His disturbing, degenerate nature, first hinted at when he beats his wife, is fully evident after he rapes his sister-in-law. Stanley shows no remorse for his brutal actions. The play ends with an image of Stanley as the ideal family man, comforting his wife as she holds their newborn child. The wrongfulness of this representation, given what we have learned about him in the play, ironically calls into question society’s decision to ostracize Blanche.
Harold "Mitch" Mitchell
Stanley’s army friend, coworker, and poker buddy, who courts Blanche until he finds out that she lied to him about her sordid past. Mitch, like Stanley, is around thirty years of age. Though he is clumsy, sweaty, and has unrefined interests like muscle building, Mitch is more sensitive and more gentlemanly than Stanley and his other friends, perhaps because he lives with his mother, who is slowly dying. Blanche and Mitch are an unlikely match: Mitch doesn’t fit the bill of the chivalric hero, the man Blanche dreams will come to rescue her. Nevertheless, they bond over their lost loves, and when the doctor takes Blanche away against her will, Mitch is the only person present besides Stella who despairs over the tragedy.
A list of interesting quotes:
"She knew she was dying when she give me this. A very strange girl, very sweet—very."
Mitch is having his first conversation with Blanche, who has just admired his silver cigarette case. The case is inscribed with a quotation from Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “And if God choose, I shall but love thee better—after—death.” The lines reveal Mitch’s softer side and his vulnerability, having lost someone he loved. The intimate moment between him and Blanche prompts her to say, “Sorry makes for sincerity, I think.”
"I like you to be exactly the way that you are, because in all my—experience—I have never known anyone like you."
Mitch reveals his feelings about Blanche to her during their evening date. Back at the flat, they have a candid conversation about affection and emotions and intentions. During this conversation, Mitch exposes his honest feelings, to himself, to Blanche, and to the audience. Sadly for him, Blanche’s reaction is an outburst of laughter. His honesty and vulnerability are too much to bear for Blanche, a woman who runs from reality.
"I weigh two hundred and seven pounds and I’m six feet one and one half inches tall in my bare feet—without shoes on. And that is what I weigh stripped."
Mitch’s description of his physical form reveals he is getting comfortable talking to Blanche. He admits that he is self-conscious of perspiring, which is why he doesn’t want to take off his coat and that he has been working out at the New Orleans Athletic Club. Blanche’s reply is, “Oh my goodness, me! It’s awe-inspiring.” It is an intimate moment between them. They are both conscious of their appearances, a fact Blanche could use to develop a real connection with Mitch. Instead, she tries to put him at ease and pave the way for a physical relationship.
"You need somebody. And I need somebody, too. Could it be—you and me, Blanche?"
At the end on Scene Six, Mitch asks Blanche if she thinks they could be a couple. As if in response, they embrace and kiss. His words are at most a proposal of marriage, at least an admission that they are two lost souls who might have found mates. The scene has been a volatile one where Mitch has listened to Blanche’s confession about her first marriage and its tragic end. At this point in the play, it almost seems that Blanche and Mitch have found love, or at least, peace.
"My youth was suddenly gone up the water spout, and—I met you. You said you needed somebody. Well, I needed somebody, too. I thanked God for you, because you seemed to be gentle—a cleft in the rock of the world that I could hide in!"
When Mitch shows up after Blanche’s birthday party, she confronts him with many truths, and this admission of her willingness to be with him is among them. Mitch accuses her of lying to him, but she disagrees and states she “didn’t lie in my heart,” a statement that reveals Blanche’s more vulnerable side.
Further analysis
Perhaps because he lives with his dying mother, Mitch is noticeably more sensitive than Stanley’s other poker friends. The other men pick on him for being a mama’s boy. Even in his first, brief line in Scene One, Mitch’s gentlemanly behavior stands out. Mitch appears to be a kind, decent human being who, we learn in Scene Six, hopes to marry so that he will have a woman to bring home to his dying mother.
Mitch doesn’t fit the bill of the chivalric hero of whom Blanche dreams. He is clumsy, sweaty, and has unrefined interests like muscle building. Though sensitive, he lacks Blanche’s romantic perspective and spirituality, as well as her understanding of poetry and literature. She toys with his lack of intelligence—for example, when she teases him in French because she knows he won’t understand—duping him into playing along with her self-flattering charades.
Though they come from completely different worlds, Mitch and Blanche are drawn together by their mutual need of companionship and support, and they therefore believe themselves right for one another. They also discover that they have both experienced the death of a loved one. The snare in their relationship is sexual. As part of her prim-and-proper act, Blanche repeatedly rejects Mitch’s physical affections, refusing to sleep with him. Once he discovers the truth about Blanche’s sordid sexual past, Mitch is both angry and embarrassed about the way Blanche has treated him. When he arrives to chastise her, he states that he feels he deserves to have sex with her, even though he no longer respects her enough to think her fit to be his wife.
The difference in Stanley’s and Mitch’s treatment of Blanche at the play’s end underscores Mitch’s fundamental gentlemanliness. Though he desires and makes clear that he wants to sleep with Blanche, Mitch does not rape her and leaves when she cries out. Also, the tears Mitch sheds after Blanche struggles to escape the fate Stanley has arranged for her show that he genuinely cares for her. In fact, Mitch is the only person other than Stella who seems to understand the tragedy of Blanche’s madness.
Eunice
Stella’s friend, upstairs neighbor, and landlady. Eunice and her husband, Steve, represent the low-class, carnal life that Stella has chosen for herself. Like Stella, Eunice accepts her husband’s affections despite his physical abuse of her. At the end of the play, when Stella hesitates to stay with Stanley at Blanche’s expense, Eunice forbids Stella to question her decision and tells her she has no choice but to disbelieve Blanche.
A list of interesting quotes
"You can’t beat on a woman an’ then call ‘er back! She won’t come! And her goin’ t’ have a baby! . . . You stinker! You whelp of a Polak, you! I hope they do haul you in and turn the fire hose on you, same as the last time."
Eunice confronts Stanley who is calling for Stella from the sidewalk. Stella, accompanied by Blanche, had escaped to Eunice’s upstairs apartment after Stanley hit her on the night of the poker game. However adamant Eunice is about what should happen next, she is mistaken. Stella does return to Stanley that same night. She forgives him. Eunice is one of the few who stand up to Stanley and tells him the truth about himself. Her words also suggest that Stanley has been violent toward Stella before.
"I always did say that men are callous things with no feelings, but this does beat anything. Making pigs of yourselves."
Eunice’s lines, spoken in the final moments of the play, serve as a reminder that this drama is focused on the complex relationships between men and women. The men—Stanley, Steve, Mitch, and Pablo—are playing poker and Eunice walks through on her way to see Stella and Blanche. Eunice’s passing comment serves as a closing statement of sorts.
"Don’t ever believe it. Life has got to go on. No matter what happens, you’ve got to keep on going."
At the end of the play, Eunice explains to Stella her philosophy of life. Blanche, unable to live in reality, is about to be taken away to a mental institution. Stella is unable to accept that Stanley raped Blanche, a stance Eunice supports with the words, “Don’t ever believe it.” Stella cannot reconcile Stanley, a rapist, with Stanley, her husband and the father of her newborn child. In a way, Stella, like Blanche, struggles with her own integrity, and chooses to sacrifice Blanche to keep her family intact.
"You done the right thing, the only thing you could do. She couldn’t stay here; there wasn’t no other place for her to go."
As she is throughout the play, Eunice is the voice of reason as the drama concludes, comforting Stella as she allows Blanche to be taken to a mental institution. By the play’s tragic end, all of the characters, with the exception of Eunice, have lost track of what is right, what is true. It would seem Eunice’s role is to remind the other characters that they must each do what they had to do to survive and get through life.
Further analysis
Compared to Blanche and Stella, Eunice appears worldly and competent. She and Steve are established enough to own the building they live in. Stella and especially Blanche are keen to brush over or hide the uglier sides of their lives, but Eunice approaches her struggles head-on and deals with them efficiently and practically. Eunice understands how their community functions and she acts as a mediator between Stella, Blanche, and Stanley. When the men’s poker night gets out of control, Eunice is the one to take in Blanche and Stella without question while Stanley cools off.
Like Stella and Stanley, Eunice and Steve have a teasing, overtly physical, occasionally violent relationship. Eunice angrily confronts her husband about his affair and threatens to go to the police when he hits her. Later, however, they make up quickly and passionately, similar to the way Stella and Stanley immediately reconcile. Although she yells and makes threats, Eunice seems to have no intention or desire to actually leave Steve. She is settled in her home and routine, and as is revealed later, Eunice believes male companionship is a woman’s anchor in society.
At the end of the play, as Blanche is escorted to an asylum, Eunice is compassionate but firm, able to keep her composure when Stella is overwhelmed. However, by assuring Stella that she doesn’t have to believe Stanley raped Blanche, Eunice in effect enables Stanley’s inexcusable act and argues that marriage is a woman’s means of survival. Given what the audience sees Eunice suffer at the hands of her husband, it is unlikely that she believes nothing of Blanche’s story. However, acknowledging its truth would require her to acknowledge her own husband’s abuse, and it would interfere with her own survival.
Allan Grey
The young man with poetic aspirations whom Blanche fell in love with and married as a teenager. One afternoon, she discovered Allan in bed with an older male friend. That evening at a ball, after she announced her disgust at his homosexuality, he ran outside and shot himself in the head. Allan’s death, which marked the end of Blanche’s sexual innocence, has haunted her ever since. Long dead by the time of the play’s action, Allan never appears onstage.
A young collector
A teenager who comes to the Kowalskis’ door to collect for the newspaper when Blanche is home alone. The boy leaves bewildered after Blanche hits on him and gives him a passionate farewell kiss. He embodies Blanche’s obsession with youth and presumably reminds her of her teenage love, the young poet Allan Grey, whom she married and lost to suicide. Blanche’s flirtation with the newspaper collector also displays her unhealthy sexual preoccupation with teenage boys, which we learn of later in the play.
Shep Huntleigh
A former suitor of Blanche’s whom she met again a year before her arrival in New Orleans while vacationing in Miami. Despite the fact that Shep is married, Blanche hopes he will provide the financial support for her and Stella to escape from Stanley. As Blanche’s mental stability deteriorates, her fantasy that Shep is coming to sweep her away becomes more and more real to her. Shep never appears onstage, and it's theorised that he never existed.
Steve
Stanley’s poker buddy who lives upstairs with his wife, Eunice. Like Stanley, Steve is a brutish, hot-blooded, physically fit male and an abusive husband.
Pablo
Stanley’s poker buddy. Like Stanley and Steve, Steve is physically fit and brutish. Pablo is Hispanic, and his friendship with Steve, Stanley, and Mitch emphasizes the culturally diverse nature of their neighborhood.
An unnamed black woman
In Scene One, the unnamed Black woman is sitting on the steps talking to Eunice when Blanche arrives, and she finds Stanley’s openly sexual gestures toward Stella hilarious. Later, in Scene Ten, we see her scurrying across the stage in the night as she rifles through a prostitute’s lost handbag.
A doctor
At the play’s finale, the doctor arrives to whisk Blanche off to an asylum. He and the nurse initially seem to be heartless institutional caretakers, but, in the end, the doctor appears more kindly as he takes off his jacket and leads Blanche away. This image of the doctor ironically conforms to Blanche’s notions of the chivalric Southern gentleman who will offer her salvation.
A Mexican woman
A vendor of Mexican funeral decorations who frightens Blanche by issuing the plaintive call “Flores para los muertos,” which means “Flowers for the dead.”
A Nurse
Also called the “Matron,” she accompanies the doctor to collect Blanche and bring her to an institution. She possesses a severe, unfeminine manner and has a talent for subduing hysterical patients.
Shaw
A supply man who is Stanley’s coworker and his source for stories of Blanche’s disreputable past in Laurel, Mississippi. Shaw travels regularly through Laurel.
Prostitute
Moments before Stanley rapes Blanche, the back wall of the Kowalskis’ apartment becomes transparent, and Blanche sees a prostitute in the street being pursued by a male drunkard. The prostitute’s situation evokes Blanche’s own predicament. After the prostitute and the drunkard pass, the Black woman scurries by with the prostitute’s lost handbag in hand.
