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Will Landschulz
Am Lit. Per. 2
Mrs. LaMagdeleine

Dear God, where to begin?  Blanche, for instance, with a boat-load of information about her former life, including that her family seemed to live in their very own "Belle Rève," (french for Beautiful Dream) while pretty much tearing down the real Belle Reve that had been part of their family for generations.  Also, Blanche seems much more cynical than we first believed (of course, the men of the family "epically fornicating" the property away would do that to a person), when she cries out "the blind are leading the blind!" at the end of Scene 2.  I find it most interesting that Blanche, being described as "like a moth," shies away from actual light ("Turn that over-light off! Turn that off!") but flutters close to another light of her life, Stella ("star").  This is a subversion of the moths we are familiar with, as they go toward unnatural light, but do not flutter towards, say, Sirius the Dog star at every opportunity.  She is also very coy towards Stanley, almost flirting with him.  Speaking of Stanley, he now comes with 10% more suspicion and brutality.  Yeah, really nice guy there.  Trying to disguise his greed with concern over "the Napoleonic code" so that he can get Blanche's estate.  However, he does feel remorse for beating Stella and is nearly debilitated by the combined forces of his remorse and her leaving him that he cries out her name for the remainder of the scene.  We get an interesting mix of brutality, hotheadedness, and genuine love from Stanley, that we were not able to see from our first glimpse of him.