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Here be the main characters from ''Theatre/AStreetcarNamedDesire'' and the tropes they embody.
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!Blanche Dubois
[[quoteright:946:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/blanche_6.png]]

->'''(Stage debut) Played By:''' Creator/JessicaTandy
->'''(Movie) Played By:''' Creator/VivienLeigh

A fading southern belle from a prestigious background, who lives with her younger sister, Stella, and her brother-in-law, Stanley.
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* BigSisterInstinct: Blanche is angered by Stanley’s mistreatment of Stella and tells her to leave him.
* BreakTheHaughty: Blanche is quite proud of her rich family background and her SouthernBelle status, but their property is lost and her looks are fading away. She stays with her married younger sister whose husband doesn't get along well with Blanche. And it only gets worse...
* CloudCuckoolander: Blanche prefers the world of her own creation, where she still is a chaste lady of refinement and she still can win the favors of men like Shep Huntleigh (whom we never meet [[spoiler: and might not exist]]). This is highlighted when Stanley is revealing her falsehoods to Stella and Blanche is singing in the bath: "Say, it's only a paper moon/Sailing over a cardboard sea/But it wouldn't be make-believe/If you believed in me." [[spoiler: Unfortunately, by the end of the play, this make-believe world is the only world she can stand to live in.]]
* CompulsiveLiar: Blanche feels the need to lie about ''everything'', even when it would make sense to tell the truth. [[spoiler:[[CryingWolf Hence why Stella doesn't want to believe that Stanley raped Blanche]]]].
* DesperatelyCravesAffection: Blanche desperately desires to be touched and fears it as well.
* EarWorm: PlayedForDrama here, in both the movie and the play. The 'Varsuviana Polka' plays in her head, audible to herself and the audience, whenever she thinks about her past, specifically her late husband. It gets stuck in her head and won't stop playing until she hears [[spoiler:the gun shot.]]
* HotForStudent: [[spoiler: She pursued one of her high school students. This was why she was fired.]]
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: When Blanche isn't calling Stanley a 'Polack', or deriding Stella for marrying him, Blanche can potentially be a genuinely nice person. For example, she's quick to help Stella after Stanley attacks her, and is greatly fearful for her welfare when she chooses to return to him.
* MeaningfulName: As Blanche herself tells to Mitch, her name means "white woods" in French.
* OldMaid: Modern equivalent. She was married, but her husband was homosexual. She is desperate to get married again, to a NiceGuy who can help her escape her reputation as a spinster. She is still fairly good-looking but is not happy about the fact that she might not be aging gracefully.
* RapeLeadsToInsanity: Invoked, after [[spoiler: Stanley rapes her]]. This is heavily implied to have broken her permanently. The next and last scene we see her, she has sunk deep into her delusions, and begins talking of her death for a romantic allure. Her descent into madness gives [[spoiler: Stanley an excuse to send her to a mental asylum]].
* SouthernBelle: Blanche is a Southern Belle in the 20th century, a fading relic of a bygone age. She is living in a world that doesn't really exist anymore and her ideals are hopelessly out of date; she has to deal with the loss of their mansion house Belle Reve in the South, has no money or prospects, lives off her sister Stella and brother-in-law Stanley but expects to be waited on and treated like a queen.
* StepfordSmiler: She has this as a part of her SouthernBelle persona, pretending she is happy and sexually innocent, when in reality she is spiralling into madness..

!Stanley Kowalski
[[quoteright:957:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/stanley_3.jpg]]

->'''Played By:''' Creator/MarlonBrando

Stella's husband and the main antagonist of the play.
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* BerserkButton: More than a few, but especially being called a Polack. This is both because he doesn't like his heritage being disparaged, ''and'' because he considers himself an American above all else.
--> ''I am not a Polack. People from Poland are Poles, not Polacks. But what I am is a one hundred percent American, born and raised in the greatest country on earth and proud as hell of it, so don’t ever call me a Polack.''
* DomesticAbuse: Fits this trope to a "T".
* ImmigrantPatriotism: Insists he’s 100 percent American.
* {{Jerkass}}: He has basically zero redeeming qualities; he's loud, brutish, a cheater, and a [[spoiler:rapist]].
* KarmaHoudini: He gets off completely scot-free in the original play, with Stella refusing to believe Blanche due to her constant lies and unwillingness to leave Stanley. The movie has Stella leave him with the baby, as it was a requirement of the [[MediaNotes/TheHaysCode Hay's Code]] that an evil character receive comeuppance.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: Stanley is a brute, but he is ''very'' cunning and smarter than he appears.
* MrFanservice: In and Out-of-Universe [[Creator/MarlonBrando with the movie version.]] It is heavily implied that Blanche is attracted to his BadBoy tendencies and good looks.
* SayMyName: One of the most famous examples of such: ''''STEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!''''
* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: The manly man to Mitch's sensitive guy.

!Harold 'Mitch' Mitchell
[[quoteright:368:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mitch_2.jpg]]

->'''Played By:''' Creator/KarlMalden

One of Stanley's friends, he is a NiceGuy who is a potential love interest for Blanche.
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* DoggedNiceGuy: A rare example where Mitch dumps Blanche after she finds out she has been [[CompulsiveLiar lying to him about everything about her.]] It is sadder when we hear that he doesn't care that she's older than he thought (what bothers her the most about herself), but that 'all the rest of it' ended it.
* MadonnaWhoreComplex: Decides that Blanche is "not clean enough" to marry after he finds out about her DarkAndTroubledPast but she's good enough to have a casual lay with. He attempts to do so when Blanche asks him feignly to marry her. He drops his hands from her waist and says he doesn't want to anymore.
* MommasBoy: He's very attached to his mother, who he takes care of as she is sick. It is because of her that he wants to get married, as that is one of her wishes.
* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: The sensitive guy to Stanley's manly man, highlighted by Blanche to show what she does and doesn't desire in the man. It is implied this may not be in her [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys expressed order...]]

!Stella Kowalski
[[quoteright:304:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/stella_53.jpg]]

->'''Played By:''' Creator/KimHunter
Blanche's younger sister and Stanley's wife.
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* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: She loves Stanley more than her own sister, despite the fact that he beats her.
* InLoveWithYourCarnage: The reason Stella doesn't leave Stanley; she mentions that on their wedding night, he took her slipper and smashed every light in the apartment with it. She says she was "sort of- ''thrilled'' by it..." in a lustful manner.
* ProperLady: She acts like a deconstructed version of this, given the setting and nature of the play/film, in which case, she plays the loyal and faithful wife. However, in playing this, she's subject to much mistreatment.
* StellarName: Stella means "star" in Latin. Lampshaded by Blanche when she arrives to the Kowalskis.
* StepfordSmiler: Especially in the movie.