A Streetcar Named Desire Characters: Full List & Analysis

Who drives the story

Main characters

Blanche DuBois

A faded Southern belle who lost Belle Reve, her family, and her teaching job, and arrives in New Orleans clinging to soft light and invented romance. She nearly escapes through marriage to Mitch, but Stanley exposes her past, rapes her, and she is committed to a mental institution.

Appears in:: Part 1: Arrival on Elysian Fields; Part 2: Trunks, Poker Night, and the Animal; Part 3: Magic, Lies, and the Birthday Ticket; Part 4: The Lantern Torn, the Doctor's Arm
Themes:: Illusion versus reality; Desire as destruction; The Old South against the new America; Loneliness and the need for someone

Stanley Kowalski

Stella's husband: a working-class Polish-American salesman and decorated war veteran, brutish, proud, and territorial, who sees through Blanche's pretensions. He destroys her engagement, rapes her, and keeps his wife by refusing to believe her.

Appears in:: Part 1: Arrival on Elysian Fields; Part 2: Trunks, Poker Night, and the Animal; Part 3: Magic, Lies, and the Birthday Ticket; Part 4: The Lantern Torn, the Doctor's Arm
Themes:: Illusion versus reality; Desire as destruction; The Old South against the new America

Stella Kowalski

Blanche's sister, pregnant and devoted to Stanley despite his violence. She chooses life with him over belief in her sister's story, and commits Blanche to keep her marriage intact.

Appears in:: Part 1: Arrival on Elysian Fields; Part 2: Trunks, Poker Night, and the Animal; Part 3: Magic, Lies, and the Birthday Ticket; Part 4: The Lantern Torn, the Doctor's Arm
Themes:: Desire as destruction

Mitch

Stanley's poker friend, a large, kind-hearted man living with his sick mother, who hopes to marry Blanche. When Stanley tells him her past, he tears the paper lantern from the bulb, rejects her, and weeps as she is taken away.

Appears in:: Part 2: Trunks, Poker Night, and the Animal; Part 3: Magic, Lies, and the Birthday Ticket; Part 4: The Lantern Torn, the Doctor's Arm
Themes:: Illusion versus reality; Loneliness and the need for someone

Eunice

The upstairs neighbor who shelters the sisters after poker night. She counsels Stella never to believe Blanche's rape story, because life has to go on.

Appears in:: Part 2: Trunks, Poker Night, and the Animal; Part 4: The Lantern Torn, the Doctor's Arm

How they are connected

Key relationships

Blanche DuBois Stanley Kowalski
She nearly escapes through marriage to Mitch, but Stanley exposes her past, rapes her, and she is committed to a mental institution.
Blanche DuBois Mitch
She nearly escapes through marriage to Mitch, but Stanley exposes her past, rapes her, and she is committed to a mental institution.
Stanley Kowalski Stella Kowalski
Stella's husband: a working-class Polish-American salesman and decorated war veteran, brutish, proud, and territorial, who sees through Blanche's pretensions.
Stella Kowalski Blanche DuBois
Blanche's sister, pregnant and devoted to Stanley despite his violence.
Mitch Stanley Kowalski
Stanley's poker friend, a large, kind-hearted man living with his sick mother, who hopes to marry Blanche.
Eunice Blanche DuBois
She counsels Stella never to believe Blanche's rape story, because life has to go on.
Eunice Stella Kowalski
She counsels Stella never to believe Blanche's rape story, because life has to go on.

Go deeper

A Streetcar Named Desire themes & symbols

Illusion versus reality · Desire as destruction · The Old South against the new America · Loneliness and the need for someone

Themes explained

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