A Streetcar Named Desire (Cambridge (CIE) IGCSE English Literature): Exam Questions

STANLEY: Then where’s the money if the place was sold?

STELLA: Not sold — lost, lost!

`[He stalks into bedroom, and she follows him.]

Stanley!

[He pulls open the wardrobe trunk standing in the middle of the room and jerks out an armful of dresses.]

STANLEY: Open your eyes to this stuff! You think she got them out of a teacher’s pay?

STELLA: Hush!

STANLEY: Look at these feathers and furs that she come here to preen herself in! What’s this here? A solid-gold dress, I believe! And this one! What is these here? Fox-pieces !

[He blows on them.] Genuine fox fur-pieces, a half a mile long! Where are your fox-pieces, Stella? Bushy snowwhite ones, no less! Where are your white fox-pieces?

STELLA: Those are inexpensive summer furs that Blanche has had a long time.

STANLEY: I got an acquaintance who deals in this sort of merchandise. I’ll have him in here to appraise it. I’m willing to bet you there’s thousands of dollars invested in this stuff here!

STELLA: Don’t be such an idiot, Stanley!

[He hurls the furs to the daybed. Then he jerks open a small drawer in the trunk and pulls up a fistful of costume jewellery.].

STANLEY: And what have we here? The treasure chest of a pirate!

STELLA: Oh, Stanley!

STANLEY: Pearls! Ropes of them! What is this sister of yours, a deep-sea diver who brings up sunken treasures? Or is she the champion safe-cracker of all time! Bracelets of solid gold, too! Where are your pearls and gold bracelets?

[from Scene 2]

BLANCHE: I have to plan for us both, to get us both — out!

STELLA: You take it for granted that I am in something that I want to get out of.

BLANCHE: I take it for granted that you still have sufficient memory of Belle Reve to find this place and these poker players impossible to live with.

STELLA: Well, you’re taking entirely too much for granted.

BLANCHE: I can’t believe you’re in earnest.

STELLA: No?

BLANCHE: I understand how it happened — a little. You saw him in uniform, an officer, not here but —

STELLA: I’m not sure it would have made any difference where I saw him.

BLANCHE: Now don’t say it was one of those mysterious electric things between people! If you do I’ll laugh in your face.

STELLA: I am not going to say anything more at all about it!

BLANCHE: All right, then, don’t!

STELLA: But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark — that sort of make everything else seem — unimportant. [Pause.]

BLANCHE: What you are talking about is brutal desire — just — Desire! — the name. of that rattle-trap street-car that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another... 

STELLA: Haven’t you ever ridden on that street-car?

BLANCHE: It brought me here, — Where I’m not wanted and where I’m ashamed to be...

STELLA: Then don’t you think your superior attitude is a bit out of place?

BLANCHE: I am not being or feeling at all superior, Stella.

Believe me I’m not! It’s just this. This is how I look at it.

A man like that is someone to go out with — once — twice — three times when the devil is in you. But live with ! Have a child by?

STELLA: I have told you I love him.

BLANCHE: Then I tremble for you! I just — tremble for you…

STELLA: I can’t help your trembling if you insist on trembling!

[from Scene 4]