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A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
by Tennessee Williams

Blanche tries to explain to her younger sister, Stella, why she shouldn't stay married to her husband, Stanley Kowalski.


BLANCHE: May I speak plainly? Well, if you'll forgive me, he's common. You can't have forgotten that much of our bringing up, Stella, to just suppose that any part of a gentleman is in his nature! Not one particle, no! Oh, if he was just - ordinary! Just plain - but good and wholesome, but - no. There's something downright - bestial about him! You're hating me saying this aren't you?

Well, he acts like an animal, has an animal's habits! Eats like one moves like one, talks like one! There's even something - sub-human - something not quite to the stage of humanity yet! Yes, something - ape-like about him, like one of those pictures I've seen in - anthropological studies!

Thousands and thousands of years have passed him by, and there he is - Stanley Kowalski - survivor of the stone age! Bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle! And you - you here - waiting for him! Maybe he'll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you! That is, if kisses have been discovered yet! Night falls and all the other apes gather! There in front of the cave, all grunting like him, and swilling and gnawing and hulking! His poker night you call it - this party of apes! Somebody growls - some creature snatches at something - the fight is on!

Maybe we are a long way from being made in God's image, but Stella - my sister - there has been some progress since then! Such things as art - as poetry and music - such kinds of new light have come into the world since then! In some kind of people some tenderer feelings have had some little beginning! That we have got to make grow! And cling to, and hold as our flag!

In this dark march toward whatever it is we are approaching...don't - don't hang back with the brutes!