Greyhound

Greyhound is the bus company whose ticket Stanley Kowalski purchases for Blanche DuBois, forcing her to leave New Orleans after he has exposed her past and destroyed her prospects. The bus ticket represents the final, irreversible expulsion of Blanche from the Kowalski household and from any remaining illusion of a genteel future.

The Bus Ticket as an Instrument of Expulsion

In Scene Seven, after Stanley has revealed to Stella the details of Blanche's past—her stay at the Flamingo Hotel, her dismissal from the high school for involvement with a seventeen-year-old boy, and her reputation in Laurel—he announces that Blanche will not remain in the apartment past Tuesday. To make certain of her departure, Stanley declares, "I bought her ticket myself. A bus-ticket!" When Stella protests that Blanche would never travel by bus, Stanley responds flatly, "She'll go on a bus and like it." The bus ticket is not merely a practical arrangement; it is a deliberate humiliation, a means of stripping Blanche of the last vestiges of the refinement she clings to. Stella, stunned, asks, "What'll—she—do? What on earth will she—do!" and Stanley answers, "Her future is mapped out for her."

The Ticket as a Birthday Gift

At the birthday supper in Scene Eight, Stanley presents the bus ticket to Blanche as a "little birthday remembrance." He holds out a small envelope and, when Blanche opens it, announces, "Ticket! Back to Laurel! On the Greyhound! Tuesday!" The Varsouviana music steals in as Blanche tries to smile, then to laugh, before she gives up and runs into the bathroom, where coughing and gagging sounds are heard. Stella tells Stanley, "You didn't need to do that," and he replies, "Don't forget all that I took off her." The bus ticket, offered in the guise of a gift, becomes the cruelest possible birthday present—a one-way ticket out of her sister's life and back to a town that has effectively banished her.

The Symbolic Weight of the Greyhound Ticket

The Greyhound ticket carries the full weight of Blanche's social and economic collapse. Throughout the play, Blanche has arrived by streetcar—the Desire line that brought her to Elysian Fields—and has fantasized about being rescued by Shep Huntleigh, a wealthy oil millionaire who would take her away on a yacht. The bus ticket, by contrast, is the transportation of the poor and the desperate. It signifies that no millionaire is coming, that no yacht awaits, and that Blanche's only remaining option is to return in disgrace to the town that drove her out. The ticket is the material proof that Stanley has won: he has not only exposed Blanche's lies but has also taken control of her departure, reducing her journey to a cheap, public conveyance. When Blanche later, in her delusion, speaks of a telegram from Shep Huntleigh inviting her on a Caribbean cruise, the bus ticket stands as the brutal reality that her fantasy cannot overcome.

The Aftermath of the Ticket

After Blanche is taken away by the Doctor and the Matron in Scene Eleven, the bus ticket itself is never mentioned again, but its work is done. Blanche has been removed from the apartment, and Stanley's plan—to reclaim his household without her presence—has been executed. The ticket, purchased by Stanley and presented as a birthday gift, is the final, bureaucratic mechanism of her expulsion, a piece of paper that seals her fate as completely as any of the revelations about her past.