The first part of this scene introduces us to the motif of Blanche’s baths. She bathes constantly so as to soothe her nerves. But this is also a cleansing symbol. By her baths, she subconsciously hopes to cleanse her sins away. The baths are also another quirk which annoys Stanley since the hot baths make the apartment even hotter.
Note the open and flagrant manner in which Blanche flirts with Stanley. Again the buttons, the request for a drag on his cigarette, and the trunk function as favorite Freudian symbols. Here they are used to reinforce the idea that Blanche is attempting symbolically to seduce Stanley. She is so open about it that Stanley says, “If I didn’t know that you was my wife’s sister I’d get ideas about you.” This scene therefore balances with the later scene when Stanley rapes Blanche.
Blanche’s attempt to flirt with Stanley is her only known way of achieving success with men. She tries to use her charms. Actually, she wants Stanley to admire her and willingly commits a breach of decorum when she attempts this symbolic seduction.
This second scene presents the second encounter between the Stanley and Blanche worlds. Here even Blanche recognizes that Stanley’s world is destructive to people like her. She says of her husband: “I hurt him the way that you would like to hurt me, but you can’t.” But in actuality, Stanley will be able to destroy her rather easily. Blanche also recognizes the difference between the two worlds when she presents Stanley the collected papers of Belle Reve and thinks that it is fitting their papers for the aristocratic home should now be in his brutal hands. At the end of the encounter, it is Blanche who is left trembling and shaken by the encounter.
