Often in literature, metaphor and double-entendre is used to heighten tension between characters, whether it be sexual or otherwise. This is the case in Scene 4 in Tennesee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, where tension between Stella and Blanche is created as Blanche questions the nature of Stella's relationship with her husband, Stanley.
At the start of the extract, it is clear that Blanche does not truly believe in love, telling Stella that she will laugh if Stella says meeting Stanley was like 'one of those mysterious electric things'. This is a metaphor for an orgasm, and this adds tension as it not only shows Blanche is skeptical about love, but also it presents the idea that she believes that Stanley and Stella's relationship is soley about fulfilling eachother's sexual desires. Stella, to some extent, supports this, referring to 'things that happen between a man and a women in the dark'- sex- but saying that they 'make everything else seem – unimportant'. This shows that Stella is so attracted to Stanley's passion that she is willing to excuse his violent nature, and it also shows that she believes their relationship is about intimacy, however the caesura before 'unimportant' could show that she is still affected by Stanley's actions, despite her attraction to him. Blanche appears to reduce Stanley and Stella's relationship to merely
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She is trying to show herself to be educated, enlightened, and righteous, however, when she begs Stella not to 'hang back with the brutes', she is being hypocritical- it is clear that she wants to sleep with Stanley and she is attracted to everything she has condemned in her speech. At the end of the extract, a train 'passes outside', which highlights Blanche's isolation and allows Stanley to slip out and re-enter without the women knowing he has been listening, which heightens the dramatic tension in the