Sexual desire is a central theme throughout the play which William’s uses to reveal the sad reality of social standards at the time. The speech in scene 4 between the DuBois sisters is perhaps the most blatant metaphorical reference to sexual desire in the play. This begins when Stella says, “But there are things that happen between a man and woman in the dark… make everything else…unimportant.” This speech came just after the wild poker night at which Stanley hits his “beloved” pregnant wife. Contrary to what one would expect, Stella is blind to this abusive act and refers to it as “unimportant” as it seems as if nothing Stanley could ever do would take away her sexual desire for him. This desire drives her and blinds her from the violence …show more content…
One feminist critic writes this, “Nineteenth-century Southern gentility considered the Southern lady to be a nonsexual creature, helpless and fragile, unlike her black sisters. In The Mind of the South, W. J. Cash described in detail the distinction between black and white women, the black woman being perceived as lusty and compliant, the white as Puritanical and lily-pure. As a Southern lady, Blanche's narrowly defined social role has kept her from admitting her natural appetites and pursuing them forthrightly. She has felt obliged to lie to herself and to others…” As a result, Blanche rebelled from the rigid expectations of society and went off the rails in her rebellion towards sexual standards when her life fell apart. Ever since her husband died, Blanche had difficulty referring to the other sex in a non-sexual way. Stanley and Blanche are very similar in this area. One critic wrote concerning the likeliness of the two, ‘We know that sex is important to Stanley in his marriage, but even outside of his marriage, he basically relates to seemingly all women on a sexual level. Williams gives us some good descriptions of Stanley in his stage directions. For example, ‘Since earliest manhood the centre of [Stanley's] life has been pleasure with women [...] He sizes women up at a glance, with sexual classifications, crude images flashing into his mind and determining the way he