In Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire, Stanley and Stella Kowalski, newlyweds, live in a neglected but amiable part of New Orleans. One day Blanche, Stella's sister, comes to visit, setting up the conflict of the play: an emotional struggle between the tough, harsh, blunt Stanley and the fragile, delicate gentility of Blanche. Blanche and Stella used to live on a Southern plantation, but Stella gave up the ways of the Southern gentry when she met the uncultured Stanley. Meanwhile, Blanche watched the family estate, Belle Reve, slip through her hands and into foreclosure.
             Blanche claims to be on leave of absence from the high school where she teaches. She expects things to go smoothly once she arrives, using her wit and humor to charm her way into Stanley's heart, but things do not go as planned. She quickly develops contempt for Stanley and the way of life her sister has chosen, especially when he strikes Stella in a fit of drunken rage. Stanley's attitude is not much better. He is repulsed by what he perceives as her fake southern gentility and is galvanized to anger when he overhears her label him brutish and animal-like.
             One person seems to stand above the Kowalskis in grace and refinement: Mitch. Mitch works in the same factory as Stanley, but his innate good nature and sincerity encourage Blanche to return his affection. As the summer progresses Blanche keeps a limit on the intimacy of the relationship, professing to be an old-fashioned girl with strict ideals and morals. However, Blanche's true past catches up to her.
             When she was younger, she fell in love and married a young man, Allan. Soon after they were married, she walked in on her husband in bed with another man. Before long she confronted her Allan with his homosexuality, whereupon he ran outside and shot himself in shame. After this, she started seeking solace in the arms of others, many others, so many in fact that no man in her town of Laurel, ...