[QUOTE=Sitnam]
I saw it last night for the first time and I’m still not sure today about a few things:
In the near final scene did Stanley rape Blanche thereby sending her into complete madness?
[/QUOTE]
Yes.
The rape. She’s telling…uh, Eunice, I think it was, that she can’t believe that of her husband, and Eunice is actually the one to “clarify” that she (Stella) can’t believe it of him and still live with him. Eunice is the one that lets the audience know that she and Stella both know the truth, but that Stella is choosing to live with the lie.
I don’t remember “turn a trick” I remember: “I never was hard or self-sufficient enough. Soft people- soft people’ve got to court the favor of the hard ones, Stella, they’ve got to shimmer and glow. I don’t know how much longer I could turn the trick.It isn’t enough to be soft, you’ve got to be soft and attractive. And I- I’m fading now!” (From memory, many years ago, so that might not be quite right.) She’s talking about attracting men - “turn the trick” of looking beautiful and attractive at her advanced age - but I don’t think it’s in a prostitution sense. Blanche isn’t “an aristocrat” so much as an aged debutante. She views her own worth solely by the quality and quantity of the men she can attract. She used to live at the Hotel Flamingo, and was thrown out for being promiscuous (as Stanley finds out when scooping for dirt on her), but there’s no sign that she was an actual prostitute. She’s a schoolteacher by trade, so she can support herself monetarily (until she’s caught sleeping with a 17 year old student), but she isn’t whole emotionally unless she has a lover, and a suave, well-educated “good catch” at that. Of course, she’s batshit insane, or at least insipid, and doesn’t keep her lovers long. It didn’t take long for a woman to earn the label of “loose” in those days. It’s certain she had a string of lovers at the Hotel Flamingo, but we really don’t know how many or if she’d be considered slutty by today’s standards. Stanley she despises as a dirty low-class Polack, while at the same time being drawn to him sexually and despising him for it.
There are two reasons in most productions. Again, this varies depending on the production, director and actor choices. First of all, Stella really does love Stanley. Secondly, she feels she has no choice, sociologically or economically. Remember she has a baby somewhere in Act II. A lot of women in that day and age stayed in horrible marriages because they couldn’t support themselves and their children, or were too frightened to. Emotionally, it’s easier to blame Blanche for being out of her senses and seducing Stanley or accusing him falsely than to hold Stanley responsible for being a rapist. Stella is Stanley’s enabler, like many battered and abused wives.
It’s not a happily-ever-after ending. We’re supposed to feel let down by Stella and disgusted by Stanley and sorry for Blanche.
