Blanche's Birthday Supper
Blanche's Birthday Supper is the scene in which the last shreds of Blanche DuBois's carefully constructed world are torn away. Taking place in mid-September, three-quarters of an hour after the meal has begun, the supper is a dismal affair. The view through the big windows fades into a still-golden dusk, and a torch of sunlight blazes on the side of a water-tank across the empty lot. Stanley Kowalski sits sullen, Stella Kowalski is embarrassed and sad, and Blanche wears a tight, artificial smile on her drawn face. A fourth place at the table remains conspicuously vacant—Mitch, whom Blanche had expected to join them for cake and ice cream, has not come. The scene is the culmination of Stanley's campaign to destroy Blanche, and it ends with her final, desperate attempt to maintain her dignity before the truth overwhelms her.
The Humiliation and the Bus Ticket
Blanche attempts to break the oppressive silence by asking Stanley to tell a joke, then offers to tell one herself—a parrot story about an old maid and a preacher. Stanley pays no attention, instead reaching across the table to spear the remaining chop with his fork and eating it with his fingers. Stella, angered, tells him to wash his greasy hands and help clear the table. In response, Stanley hurls a plate to the floor, seizes Stella's arm, and delivers a tirade: "Don't ever talk that way to me! 'Pig—Polack—disgusting—vulgar—greasy!'—them kind of words have been on your tongue and your sister's too much around here!" He declares himself the king of the household, quoting Huey Long's "Every Man is a King!" and smashes a cup and saucer to the floor. Stella begins to cry weakly. Blanche, sensing that something has happened regarding Mitch, rushes to the phone to call him, leaving a message asking him to call back. When she returns, Stella lights the candles on the white birthday cake, but Blanche, in a moment of fragile poetry, asks her to save them for the baby's birthdays, hoping "candles are going to glow in his life." Stanley, having taken a phone call about bowling, then presents Blanche with a small envelope. She opens it to find a bus ticket—a Greyhound ticket back to Laurel, for Tuesday. The Varsouviana music, the polka tune associated with her dead husband Allan Grey, steals in softly and continues playing. Blanche tries to smile, then to laugh, then gives up, springs from the table, and runs into the bathroom, where coughing and gagging sounds are heard.
The Aftermath and Stella's Realization
Stella confronts Stanley, telling him he didn't need to be so cruel to someone as alone as Blanche. Stanley defends himself, reminding Stella of all he has taken from Blanche. Stella, her voice breaking, recalls the girl Blanche once was: "Nobody, nobody, was tender and trusting as she was. But people like you abused her, and forced her to change." Stanley, changing into his bowling shirt, retorts that when they first met, Stella thought he was common, and that he pulled her down off the columns of Belle Reve. "And wasn't we happy together, wasn't it all okay till she showed here?" he asks. As he speaks, Stella's look goes suddenly inward; she begins a slow, shuffling progress from the bedroom to the kitchen, leaning on furniture with a blind look. Stanley, finally noticing the change, asks what is wrong. Stella quietly says, "Take me to the hospital." The baby is coming. Stanley supports her with his arm as they go outside, leaving Blanche alone in the apartment.
The Confrontation with Mitch
Later that evening, after Stella has left for the hospital, Blanche sits alone in the bedroom, dressed in her scarlet satin robe, drinking to escape the Varsouviana music that plays in her mind. Mitch arrives, unshaven and in work clothes, having had several drinks. He confronts her about the lies Stanley has told him—about the Flamingo Hotel, about her reputation in Laurel, about the seventeen-year-old boy. Blanche, in a moment of brutal honesty, admits the truth: "Yes, I had many intimacies with strangers. After the death of Allan—intimacies with strangers was all I seemed able to fill my empty heart with." She describes her panic, her desperate search for protection, and her eventual arrival at the Kowalski apartment as a last resort. Mitch, unmoved, tells her she is "not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother." Blanche, her throat tightening with hysteria, orders him to leave and threatens to scream fire. When he remains, she rushes to the window and cries out, "Fire! Fire! Fire!" Mitch, startled, turns and leaves, clattering down the steps. Blanche staggers back from the window and falls to her knees.
The Final Collapse and Departure
Some weeks later, Stella is packing Blanche's things. The poker players—Stanley, Steve, Mitch, and Pablo—are gathered around the kitchen table, the atmosphere as raw and lurid as on the disastrous poker night. Blanche, having been told she is going to the country to rest, has mixed this up in her mind with Shep Huntleigh. She emerges from the bathroom in her red satin robe, with a tragic radiance, and speaks of dying at sea, of being buried in a clean white sack dropped overboard into an ocean as blue as her first lover's eyes. A Doctor and a Matron from the state institution arrive. Blanche, at first, believes they are from Shep Huntleigh, but when she sees the Matron, she realizes the truth and tries to retreat. The Matron advances, and Blanche scratches at her, but the Doctor, with a gentle voice, calms her. He takes off his hat, becoming personalized, and leads her through the portieres. As they cross the kitchen to the front door, Blanche holds tight to his arm and speaks her famous line: "Whoever you are—I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." She walks on without turning, followed by the Doctor and the Matron, as Stella cries out her sister's name from the porch. Stanley, kneeling beside Stella, soothes her with murmurs of "Now, honey. Now, love." The play ends with the swelling music of the blue piano and Steve's voice saying, "This game is seven-card stud."
