“Stellaaaaaaa!”

Ah, the infamous “Stella!” cry, seen in various areas of pop culture: a hysterical, somewhat shocking impersonation from Elaine Benes, found in “The Pen” episode of Seinfeld (definitely check out that video, it’ll make your day), and Matt Groening’s cartoon The Simpsons paid tribute to Tennessee Williams’ play, A Streetcar Named Desire, by launching their own semi-epic episode, “A Streetcar Named Marge.” Tennessee’s famous play is centered around three main characters: Stanley and Stella, who are married–Stanley is a Polish liquor lover, Stella is his ultimately devoted wife who means well–and Blanche, Stella’s neurotic, flirtatious sister who possesses possibly the most annoying voice ever caught on film. The definition for the word “blanch” is for something, usually a person’s face, to become drastically pale from fear or illness. This describes Blanche’s face almost perfectly; she’s always worried that people–especially men–aren’t taking her seriously or don’t think she’s attractive.

Streetcar, plain and simple, tells the story of Stella and Stanley getting their lives interrupted and in some cases rearranged by Stella’s sister, Blanche.  Stanley hates Blanche with a passion and wants her out ASAP.  He goes so far as to rape and verbally abuse her in an effort to say, “Get out of my house and stay away from my girl.”

This ending is somewhat of a letdown; the dramatic scenes beforehand made the viewers or readers think that at least two characters–preferably Stanley and Blanche–were going to have a confrontation where one would kill the other. Tennessee’s play ends with many loose ends still needing to be tied up. Do Stella and Stanley stay together? Maybe Blanche has a huge breakdown in the car on the way to her new “home” and dies. There’s always the very real possibility that Stanley could be abusing Stella like he did Blanche. Mitch, Blanche’s brief suitor and Stanley’s best friend, could be driven to suicide after realizing all that Blanche went through during her lifetime, and that he didn’t cut her any slack at all. There are so many odds and ends that could be pieced together to make a killer ending and so many opinions on the characters that maybe an open ending was best for Streetcar. The Blanche haters could decide that she dies while the Blanche lovers could imagine her recuperating and eventually making her way out into the world again. Nothing is set in stone, so no one can tell anyone that their interpretation is wrong or stupid.