Tennessee Williams
A Streetcar Named Desire - He’s Like An Animal
[Blanche Dubois]
May I speak plainly?...If you'll forgive me, he's common!...Suppose? Surely you can't have forgotten that much of our upbringing, Stella, that you suppose there's any part of a gentleman in his nature. Oh, you're hating me saying this, aren't you?...He's like an animal. He has an animal's habits. There's even something subhuman about him. Thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is! Stanley Kowalski, survivor of the Stone Age, bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle! And you - you here waiting by it. Maybe he'll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you. That's if kisses have been discovered yet. His poker night, you call it. His party of apes! Maybe we are a long way from being made in God's image, but Stella, my sister, there's been some progress since then. Such things as art, as poetry, as music. In some kinds of people, some tenderer feelings have had some little beginning that we have got to make grow and to cling to, and hold as our flag in this dark march toward whatever it is we're approaching. Don't, don't hang back with the brutes!