Double Take

Stanley is definitely a character who comes off as the manliest brute we care to imagine. Between getting angrily drunk, gambling and beating his wife, Stella, we deduce that he is a character of stubbornness and brutality. However, Williams gives us one instance where we see a little bit of a passionate side in Stanley. At the end of scene eight, Stanley reminds Stella how happy they were before Blanche arrived and ruined their lives together. He even points at that he "was common as dirt," but that she still loved him. Stanley gives us an emotional side in his mini speech to Stella, and to top off his speech, she goes in to labor right as he finishes. It is described that holds her close and takes her outside presumably to a hospital. His compassion here is almost overwhelming to us because we have seen such an angry brute up until this time.

The implications Williams sends is most likely that not everyone is necessarily as they seem. Stanley actually does have the ability to be a compassionate person and show love normally, not just in a drunken state where he usually ends up apologizing like the end of scene three. Stanley apologizes to Stella and the two make up, much to Blanche's concern. His brutality is shadowed by this instance of love he shows through his speech and compassion when he helps her to the hospital. Of course, he quickly reverts to his old ways when he rapes Blanche in the next scene. Williams communicates something important in scene eight then. He becomes a believable character in a way, not just a crazy brute.