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Act Two, Part 2

Summary 

In their bedroom, Stanley admits to Eugene that he told Kate about the money he lost gambling. Then Stanley, believing it is his fault that the family is breaking up, says he’s leaving home. For Eugene, Stanley’s departure marks the end of childhood. That evening after dinner, while Blanche packs in her room, Eugene and Laurie share their worries. When Laurie explains that she has no friends because she always stays inside, Eugene suggests that Blanche is not being truthful about Laurie’s heart. Laurie says she will never leave her mother. Afterward, Eugene tells his parents the news about Stanley’s departure, but they don’t appear worried. 

When Nora returns home late that night, she finds Blanche waiting to confront her. Blanche tells Nora that she and Kate had a fight, and she is moving out. Nora points out that Blanche wouldn’t let Nora leave home but now Blanche herself is. Blanche explains she was worried about Nora’s future, but Nora thinks she had a right to have her voice heard. Blanche, who has depended on other people her whole life, acknowledges she might have made the wrong decision. The two discuss independence, which Nora wants but Blanche says must be earned. In the ensuing conversation, Nora reveals that she feels that Blanche only cared about Dave and after his death, Laurie. She says her whole life she has been jealous of Laurie, whose illness means she gets so much attention. Blanche refuses to accept responsibility for Nora’s feeling cheated and cautions her against self-pity. Nora just wants to be loved and Blanche says she does love her. Then, Kate comes downstairs, and Nora goes to bed. Kate asks Blanche to continue living with them, but Blanche says she needs to be on her own with her daughters. Kate and Blanche eventually agree that Blanche will stay until she first finds a job and then an apartment. 

Analysis 

Even though the growing economic distress undergirds Act Two, the focus of the characters and their dialogue is on familial relationships. The only character who reacts strictly in response to financial issues is Stanley when he decides to leave the household to earn money elsewhere, though he does calculate that this action also represents the best way to earn back his parents’ trust and respect. By contrast, Blanche makes a similar decision to move out on her own. Blanche has no money and even fewer prospects than Stanley. Every prior effort she has made to find work has failed, yet she still intends to follow through on this plan. The state of her relationship with Kate as well as with herself is now of utmost importance to her. Blanche assumes she will find a way to support her family because being on their own is a need, not a want.

Act Two contains a big reveal about Nora, that she has always been jealous of the attention Laurie gets from Blanche, even to the point that Nora has wished to be crippled or ill herself. In Nora’s mind, Blanche’s giving her attention would be synonymous with loving her. When Blanche rejects Nora’s accusation of not paying her enough notice, she does it partly for Nora’s good. Blanche recognizes that her feelings of being cheated out of a life with her husband led her to self-pity. She doesn’t want Nora to go down that same debilitating path. 

This act also reveals what many in the audience may have been suspecting: Laurie may not be as ill as Blanche states. In Act One, Blanche refers to Laurie having lived like a normal kid until the doctor found the “flutter” in her heart. Since then, Laurie has been pampered and treated like a rare treasure, easy to break. She has no friends and spends all her time with her family, usually inside. Only Eugene has the good sense to ask Laurie how she feels physically, and Laurie reveals that she wouldn’t even know she was sick if Blanche didn’t tell her so. Perhaps Blanche is lying to Laurie about her condition, as Eugene puts it, to “keep [her] around.”

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