A Streetcar Named Desire
Vocabulary

2 uses

... I woke up, I didn't know where I was or who I was with, I got panicky ... adrenalin was released and I got short-winded.†

Adrenalin = a trademark name for the chemical that is the "fight or flight" stimulating hormone secreted by the adrenal gland in response to stress

5 uses

in this area it is very important that Chance's attitude should be self-recognition but not self-pity — a sort of deathbed dignity and honesty apparent in it.

apparent = obvious

1 use

It sounds condescending.

condescending = a manner that treats others as inferiors

1 use

I gave people more than I took. Middle-aged people I gave back a feeling of youth. Lonely girls? Understanding, Appreciation! An absolutely convincing show of affection. Sad people, lost people? Something light and uplifting! Eccentrics? Tolerance, even odd things they long for...

eccentrics = people who are strange or unconventional

1 use

[He has removed a pink capsule from his pocket, quickly and furtively, and drunk it down with his vodka.]

furtively = while taking pains to avoid being observed

1 use

  Stella [slowly and emphatically]: I'm not in anything I want to get out of.
  Blanche [incredulously]: What - Stella?

incredulously = not believing what she's heard

6 uses

[Scotty re-enters from the bathroom and indicates to Tom Junior that Chance is not there.]

indicates = expresses (in this case by gesturing)

2 uses

Y'know how indifferent I am to money.

indifferent = uninterested

1 use

Since earliest manhood the centre of his life has been pleasure with women, the giving and taking of it, not with weak indulgence, dependently, but with the power and pride of a richly feathered male bird among hens.

indulgence = excessive enjoyment

1 use

He has the length and leanness and luminous pallor efface that El Greco gave to his saints.

luminous = glowing

7 uses

There is such a thing in this State of Louisiana as the Napoleonic code, according to which...

Napoleonic code = French civil laws established with consistency under Napoleon and influential in much of the world (in the United States, influential in Louisiana)

1 use

1 use

I'm pretentious.

pretentious = trying to appear more impressive than is deserved

1 use

Stanley [prodigiously elated]:

prodigiously = far beyond what is usual in magnitude or degree

2 uses

Tom Junior: How about your well-known promiscuity, Papa?†

promiscuity = indiscriminate (non-selective) — especially having many sexual partners

1 use

1 use

I attempt to instill a bunch of bobby-soxers and drug-store Romeos with reverence for Hawthorne and Whitman and Poe!

reverence = deep respect and admiration

2 uses

The shadows and lurid reflections move sinuously as flames along the wall spaces.†

sinuously = curving in and out

5 uses

I don't know what's the matter, we're all so solemn.

solemn = serious (in this case, overly serious, or not cheerful)

2 uses

Stella for Starl [She begins to speak with feverish vivacity as if she feared for either of them to stop and think.†

vivacity = engaging liveliness