Stanley Strikes Stella
Stanley Kowalski strikes his wife Stella during a drunken poker night, an act of domestic violence that exposes the brutal fault lines in their marriage and triggers a temporary separation before Stella's return, revealing the cyclical nature of their relationship and Blanche's horrified incomprehension.
Causes and Background
The violence erupts during a poker game at the Kowalski apartment on Elysian Fields in New Orleans, late at night after Stella and Blanche have returned from a show. The game, played by Stanley, Steve, Pablo, and Harold Mitchell (Mitch), has been fueled by whiskey and beer, with the men in "colored shirts, solid blues, a purple, a red-and-white check, a light green" and watermelon slices on the table. Stanley, already half-drunk, is in a volatile mood, having earlier slapped Stella's thigh in front of the men, a gesture she sharply rebuked as "not fun." The tension escalates when Blanche, in the bedroom, turns on a small white radio to play rhumba music. Stanley, enraged, jumps up, crosses to the radio, and turns it off, then stops short at the sight of Blanche in the chair. When she later turns the radio on again, he stalks fiercely through the portieres, snatches the instrument off the table, and with a shouted oath tosses it out the window. Stella rushes through to the poker table, crying, "Drunk — drunk — animal thing, you!" and orders all the men to go home, demanding, "If any of you have one spark of decency in you—"
What Happens
As Stella backs out of sight, Stanley advances and disappears. There is the sound of a blow, and Stella cries out. Blanche screams and runs into the kitchen. The men rush forward, and there is grappling and cursing; something is overturned with a crash. Blanche shrilly announces, "My sister is going to have a baby!" Mitch declares, "This is terrible," and Blanche calls it "Lunacy, absolute lunacy!" Stanley is forced, pinioned by Steve and Pablo, into the bedroom, nearly throwing them off before subsiding and becoming limp in their grasp. They speak quietly and lovingly to him, and he leans his face on one of their shoulders. Stella, out of sight, says in a high, unnatural voice, "I want to go away, I want to go away!" Blanche rushes into the bedroom, grabs Stella's clothes, and guides her upstairs to Eunice's flat, saying, "Stella, Stella, precious! Dear, dear little sister, don't be afraid!" The men quickly sweep up their winnings and leave, with Mitch repeating, "Poker should not be played in a house with women." Stanley, left alone, stumbles half-dressed out to the porch and down the wooden steps, throws back his head like a baying hound, and bellows his wife's name: "Stella! Stella, sweetheart! Stella!" He cries out with "heaven-splitting violence," "STELL-LAHHHHH!" Eunice calls down from her door, "You can't beat on a woman an' then call 'er back! She won't come! And her goin' t' have a baby!" Despite this, Stella slips down the rickety stairs in her robe, her eyes glistening with tears and her hair loose. They stare at each other, then come together with low, animal moans. Stanley falls to his knees on the steps and presses his face to her belly, curving a little with maternity. Her eyes go blind with tenderness as she catches his head and raises him level with her. He snatches the screen door open and lifts her off her feet, bearing her into the dark flat. Blanche, coming out on the upper landing, slips fearfully down the steps and stops before the dark entrance, catching her breath as if struck. She rushes down to the walk, looking right and left as if for a sanctuary. Mitch appears and tells her, "There's nothing to be scared of. They're crazy about each other." Blanche replies, "I'm not used to such—" and later says, "Violence! Is so—"
Consequences and Aftermath
The next morning, Stella is lying in the bedroom, her face serene in the early sunlight, one hand resting on her belly, rounding slightly with new maternity. Blanche, who has spent a sleepless night, presses her knuckles nervously to her lips as she looks through the door. She throws herself down beside Stella in a rush of hysterical tenderness, crying, "Baby, my baby sister!" Stella draws away, asking, "Blanche, what is the matter with you?" Blanche is incredulous that Stella has returned and slept with Stanley. Stella explains, "When men are drinking and playing poker anything can happen. It's always a powder-keg. 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." She reveals that on their wedding night, Stanley snatched off one of her slippers and smashed all the light-bulbs with it, and she was "sort of—thrilled by it." Blanche calls Stanley a "madman" and insists Stella must get out, but Stella replies slowly and emphatically, "I'm not in anything I want to get out of." Blanche later tells Stella, "What such a man has to offer is animal force and he gave a wonderful exhibition of that! But the only way to live with such a man is to—go to bed with him! And that's your job—not mine!" Stella, in turn, asks Blanche, "Haven't you ever ridden on that street-car?" referring to Desire, and Blanche admits, "It brought me here.—Where I'm not wanted and where I'm ashamed to be." The incident establishes a pattern of violence and reconciliation that defines the Kowalski marriage, and it deepens the antagonism between Blanche and Stanley, as Blanche sees him as a brute and Stanley overhears her calling him "common" and "bestial" the next morning, an insult he will later use to justify his campaign to destroy her.
