Steve Hubbell
Steve Hubbell is a minor but recurring figure in the world of A Streetcar Named Desire, the husband of Eunice Hubbell and a regular poker companion of Stanley Kowalski. He lives with Eunice in the upstairs flat of the two-story building on Elysian Fields, and his presence, though seldom at the center of the action, consistently reinforces the play's atmosphere of rough, instinctual life in the French Quarter. His marriage, conducted in loud public quarrels and reconciliations, mirrors the Kowalskis' own volatile dynamic and provides a communal context for the play's central conflicts.
Identity and Background
Steve is one of Stanley's close friends and fellow poker players, part of the circle that includes Harold Mitchell (Mitch) and Pablo Gonzales. He works alongside Stanley at the same plant, where Stanley travels as a salesman and Steve is described as being on the precision bench in the spare parts department. Like the other men, he is a product of the working-class New Orleans environment, comfortable with rough humor, heavy drinking, and the casual physicality that defines the poker nights. He is married to Eunice, who owns the building where both couples live, and their relationship is characterized by frequent, explosive arguments that spill out into the street for the neighborhood to witness.
Relationship with Eunice and Domestic Conflict
The Hubbells' marriage is the most openly combative in the play, providing a stark contrast to the more private tensions between Stanley and Stella. In Scene Five, Eunice erupts in fury, shouting accusations that Steve has been with a blonde woman, threatening to call the vice squad. Steve denies the charge, but the argument escalates into physical violence: Eunice shrieks "You hit me! I'm gonna call the police!" and a clatter of aluminum striking a wall is heard, followed by overturned furniture. Eunice rushes downstairs in "daemonic disorder," vowing to call the police, but Steve, nursing a bruise on his forehead, follows her to the Four Deuces bar, and within moments they return with his arm around her shoulder, she sobbing "luxuriously" and he cooing love-words. This pattern of violent quarrel followed by passionate reconciliation directly parallels the cycle of Stanley's abuse of Stella and her return to him, and it underscores the play's suggestion that such dynamics are a normal, even expected, part of life in this community.
Role in the Poker Nights and the Play's Action
Steve is a fixture at the poker games that punctuate the play. During the disastrous poker night in Scene Three, he is one of the players, dealing hands and telling a crude joke about a farmer and a rooster. When Stanley, in a drunken rage, strikes Stella and throws the radio out the window, Steve joins the other men in restraining him, speaking quietly and lovingly to him until Stanley subsides. Later, in the final scene, Steve is again at the poker table, and when the Doctor and Matron arrive to take Blanche away, he is among the men who stand awkwardly, watching the tragedy unfold. His final line, "This game is seven-card stud," spoken as the curtain falls, underscores the men's return to their ordinary routines even as Blanche's life has been shattered. Steve's function is largely atmospheric: he embodies the coarse, male-dominated social world that Blanche finds so alien and threatening, and his marriage to Eunice provides a recurring motif of the cycle of violence and forgiveness that defines the Kowalskis' relationship.
