gainst Stanley, who is a "Polack" and lower class. But we sense that Blanches own life is not what she purports it to be, for she has Blanche bring out the whiskey (without revealing she has already had some), and has two more drinks. She reveals that the superintendent of her school has asked her to take a ôleave of absence" from teaching and that she has "lost" Belle Reve due to the long illnesses and deaths of their parents. (She is deliberately vague on this point, and it is unclear whether the plantation was sold or foreclosed.) Much of her despair and anger is directed against Stella, who "was in bed with her Polack" while she "fought and bled and almost died" for the family home (pp. 25, 26). Stella, who has remained quiet
throughout most of this tirade, is reduced to tears and Blanche
asks her forgiveness. But repentance does not seem real; we
sense that Blanche is too preoccupied with propping up her image
of herself as a Southern belle to be truly concerned about
StellaÆs feelings. In fact, she seems almost pleased to find her
sister living in a tiny, rundown apartment with a crude, lower
...