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Poker Night Ending Explained
- Poker Night Ending Explained Date
- Poker Night Ending Explained Meaning
- Poker Night Ending Explained Ending
- Poker Night Ending Explained
- Poker Night Ending Explained Movie
Scene-by-Scene Questions
O’Dempsey’s Matthew Finlay explained: “O’Dempsey’s are doing a shave or dye for Dan and now that we have hit €8,000, I’m going to dye my hair the Portarlington colours live on my Instagram at 9pm on Wednesday. 13 others have agreed to do the same and they will join me on the live feed on the night. One night all the other players were depositing their chips into Todd Detwiler’s growing stack, so he became TD Bank. Other nicknames—Fuckery Jones comes to mind—would be harder to explain.
The tension is drained quite a few times in Poker Night. Nearly every time the film jumps back to the poker game then over to Jeter in bloody distress, the film just never manages to recover that. Setting a pre-determined ending time will up the competitiveness of everybody. It will also determine when you’ll raise the blinds (generally every 30-60 minutes of play). Be sure the ending time is pre-approved by any roommates and/or spouses whose space you’re taking over for an evening. Parting Thoughts on the Pleasures of Poker Night.
Test your understanding of the play by answering the following questions:
Scenes 1-3
1. When we first meet Blanche DuBois, she has traveled to see her sister Stella. She took streetcars named Desire and Cemeteries to arrive at her sister’s apartment. What might these names represent?
2. Blanche goes into Stella’s apartment to wait for her to come home. What does she do while she is waiting?
3. What does Belle Reve mean? What does it refer to in the play?
4. What does Blanche indicate is her professional job in Laurel? What has happened to her husband?
5. Why does Blanche say that she has left her teaching job to visit Stella?
6. Why does Blanche say that she lost Belle Reve? What explanation does Blanche give for having lost Belle Reve?
7. At the end of Scene One, what music “rises up, faint in the distance”?
8. Near the end of Scene One, what do we learn about Blanche’s husband?
9. What is Stanley’s initial response to Blanche’s visit at the end of Scene One?
10. In Scene Two, Stanley finds out about the loss of Belle Reve. What is his reaction?
11. What does Stanley think that Blanche has done with the money he believes she made from selling Belle Reve?
12. What is the implication of the “Napoleonic Code” as it relates to Stella and Stanley?
13. What does Stanley tell Blanche about Stella as they are going through her business papers?
14. Where are Stella and Blanche going while the men play poker?
15. Sum up the exposition Williams defines for “The Poker Night” scene. Why does Williams integrate the Van Gogh painting? What is the implication of the reference to “primary colours,” including the “bold” colours of the linoleum, the shirts, the watermelon – “the raw colours of childhood’s spectrum”.
16. When Blanche and Stella return to the apartment, the men are still there playing poker. Which one does Stella introduce to Blanche? What does Blanche say about him?
17. Blanche goes to the back room, a bedroom, to relax until the men finish playing. She turns on the radio. Stanley asks her to turn it off, but when she doesn’t, what does Stanley do?
18. Why does Blanche lie to Mitch about being younger than Stella? Why doesn’t she like bright lights?
19. What happens between Stella and Stanley that ends the poker game?
Characters
20. What kind of relationship do Stella and Stanley have?
21. How does Stanley differ from Blanche?
22. How does Mitch compare and contrast with Stanley?
23. In one of his italicized passages in Scene One, Williams’ builds an elaborate description of Stanley Kowalski. What is your impression of Stanley as you have observed him through Scene Two? What is your impression of Stella? of Blanche?
24. Describe the confrontation between Stanley and Blanche in Scene Two.
Symbols
25. Music – The play has many stage directions referring to music. What music and songs are present in the first three scenes? How does the music relate to the characters?
26. Light – Why is the paper lantern important to Blanche?
Scenes 4-6
1. How did Stella say she reacted to Stanley’s breaking all the light bulbs on their wedding night?
2. What idea does Blanche have to escape New Orleans with Stella?
3. What analogy does Blanche build in her description of Stanley in Scene Four?
4. When Blanche and Stella are discussing Stanley, his entrance to the apartment is washed out by a passing train. What does he hear Blanche say about him?
5. In Scene Five, Blanche discusses astrological signs. What sign does she think Stanley was born under and why?
6. What sign does she say she was born under? What does it mean?
7. Seemingly out of the blue, Stanley asks Blanche if she knows someone named Shaw. He says that Shaw knew Blanche from Laurel but must have mixed her up with someone else who partied at the Hotel Flamingo. What is Blanche’s response?
8. Who is coming over to see Blanche on this night?
9. After Stella and Stanley leave, a young man comes to the door collecting money for the local newspaper, The Evening Star. What does Blanche do to him?
10. Blanche and Mitch discuss Stanley. She asks him if Stanley talks much about her and explains how horrid he is making her life there with them. What does Mitch respond?
11. At the end of Scene Six, Blanche is confiding in Mitch by telling him the story of how her husband died. How did he die? What led to that?
Characters
12. Blanche – In Scene Five, Blanche is writing a letter to Shep Huntleight. Why does she not tell him the truth of her situation?
13. Blanche – In Scene Five, we see Blanche drinking again. Why do you think she drinks? (Don’t say she’s an alcoholic.)
14. Blanche – Why does Blanche flirt with the newspaper boy?
Symbols
15. Music – Where and what kind of music is mentioned in these scenes?
Scenes 7-11
1. It is now mid-September and Blanche’s birthday. Stella has prepared a party for her. Stanley lets Stella know that he has learned some things about Blanche. What things?
2. During their talk, Blanche is in the tub and singing. What does she sing about?
3. Who is supposed to come over for Blanche’s birthday? Why does Stanley say this person won’t be coming?
4. What has Stanley bought for Blanche?
5. Blanche is stood up. They sit talking at the table and Stanley gets angry at Stella for telling him his face and fingers are disgustingly greasy. What does he do in response?
6. What happens at the end of Scene Eight?
7. In Scene Nine, who stops by unexpectedly to see Blanche?
8. Blanche makes a very telling statement about reality. What does she say?
9. What does Blanche admit happened after her husband’s death? Why did she say she did this?
10. Why does Mitch say he won’t marry Blanche now?
11. Stanley comes home from the hospital. Blanche has been drinking fairly steadily since Mitch left. Who does she tell Stanley she heard from? What invitation does she say he extended?
12. Blanche tells Stanley that Mitch came to see her that night. What does she tell him the reason was?
13. What happens at the end of Scene Ten?
14. Several weeks have passed and Stella is packing Blanche’s things. Where does Blanche think she is going? Where is she actually going?
Characters
15. Blanche – Why does Stanley want her to leave? How is her presence effecting his marriage?
16. Stanley – How has his relationship with Stella changed? How has his relationship with Blanche changed?
Symbols
17. What do you think is the symbolic meaning of the Mexican woman selling flowers for the dead in Scene Nine?
18. Why does Mitch rip the paper lantern off of the light bulb? What does light represent?
Final Questions
1. Which character do you have the most sympathy for? Why?
2. Only Scene Three is given a title by Williams. Give a title to three other scenes and explain your reasoning for each title.
3. At the beginning of the play, Stanley is bowling and at the end he is playing cards. What does this suggest about his views of life?
4. Did Mitch love Blanche?
5. Why will a woman stay with a man who abuses her?
Poker Night Ending Explained Date
Scene 3
Poker night. Stanley and the boys sit around the kitchen table, swilling whiskey and playing cards. Mitch complains that he has a sick mother at home, and hides in the bathroom for awhile.
Poker Night Ending Explained Meaning
Blanche and Stella come home, too early. They are not welcome around the poker game. Mitch comes out of the bathroom and is immediately taken with Blanche, who does not fail to notice him either. The game continues and the girls gossip and listen to the radio, but Stanley is upset at the noise and makes them turn off the radio.
Mitch deals out of the hand and goes to talk to Blanche. He offers her a cigarette from a silver case with an inscription from a dead girl to whom Mitch was once attached. Blanche asks Mitch to help her hang a paper lantern, to cover the naked light bulb. They talk about her former students, and how she enjoyed watching their youthful discovery of love even if it meant that they didn't have much interest in her English curriculum.
Blanche puts the radio back on and begins to dance. Stanley storms into the bedroom and grabs the radio, throwing it out the window. Stella hollers at him, and he hits her. The men pull Stanley away to calm him down. Stella cries that she wants to leave, and Blanche leads her upstairs to Eunice's apartment.
Stanley comes to his senses and realizes that Stella is gone. He goes outside and begins bellowing his wife's name: Stell-ahhhh! Eunice comes out and tells Stanley to hush, but he continues to holler. After a moment, Stella emerges and embraces her husband. He lifts her up and carries her back into their flat.
Poker Night Ending Explained Ending
Blanche emerges, fearful, and realizes that Stella has gone back to Stanley. She is confused and scared. Mitch appears again and she bottles up her interest in her sister's behavior to continue flirting with Mitch.
Analysis
'Poker shouldn't be played in a house with women.' Mitch is adamant in his conviction that the conflict that erupts in the Kowalski household is due to the flammable combination of poker and women. It's not the card playing per se, however, that makes the situation volatile. Stanley sees himself as a man's man, with all the whiskey and cussing and misogyny he feels that implies. Poker night is a testosterone-fueled occasion, and spirits are running high and flowing fast. When the women come home, Stanley has been losing money, and needs to save face with his buddies. The combination of liquor, the late hour, the bad poker hands, and Stanley's increasing annoyance at his sister-in-law's presence all lead to him finally striking his wife.
But it is clear that this isn't the first time, nor is it the last. 'It makes me so mad when he does that in front of people,' Stella says, when Stanley smacks her the first time. This sentence is loaded – it doesn’t make her mad that he smacks her, but that he smacks her in public. They can do what they want when they're alone, but as long as Blanche is around they will not be alone.
The reality/romantic dichotomy is further explored in this scene as Blanche spins a gossamer web for Mitch in the diffuse lantern light. She masks her age in shadow, and her own darkness in light banter. She even translates her name for Mitch as 'white woods, like an orchard in spring,' despite the fact that she is well past her springtime. (Anglicized, Blanche's surname is DuBoys – which she does, all too well)
Poker Night Ending Explained
Mitch is drawn to Blanche, and she to him, but for different reasons. Mitch is enraptured by Blanche's many tricks and tools of coquettish seduction, and desperate Blanche latches on to the stable and supportive idea of a husband. They share a familiarity with death - Blanche watched the older generation of her family die, and Mitch lost the girl who gave him the cigarette lighter. But Blanche's loss is more profound, more crippling, and the darkness in her quickly threatens to overwhelm the simplicity of Mitch.
Poker Night Ending Explained Movie
The famous image from this scene – and indeed, the most famous image in the Williams canon – is Stanley Kowalski, symbol of virility and manhood, kneeling exposed and half-naked on the pavement as he desperately cries his wife's name. It is a difficult scene, in performance. Aside from avoiding the specter of Marlon Brando, the actor must also avoid the maudlin in making Stanley's desperation both sexy and terrifying. Stanley and Stella's reunion is without words – their connection is silent, physical. Stanley must likewise be a physical, commanding, dominating force in this scene, a center of gravity to attract Stella and pull her towards him, pull her down the stairs and quite literally down to his level.
To make this scene effective, the audience must be feeling exactly the same things as Blanche: a mixture of fear and curiosity. For Blanche, desire is something to be dressed up in lace and perfume and hidden from sight – it certainly exists in her life, as one of the driving forces that brought her downfall, but never as baldly and bawdily as with her sister and her brother-in-law. The only man Blanche has ever loved was her husband, but due to incompatible sexualities there could not have been any passion – Blanche has never experienced this lustful love, but only calculated lust and chaste love. It is something foreign to her, something animal, and she fears it – but is drawn to it just the same. It is an incredibly complex moment of drama, rightfully iconic.