The scene of the play is the wretched outskirts of New Orleans; in the very atmosphere of this place, according to a remark by Williams, there is something "missing, spoiled." It is here that a tram with the symbolic name “Desire” brings Blanche Dubois, who, after a long chain of setbacks, adversities, compromises and the loss of her family nest, hopes to find peace or even get temporary shelter - to take a break from her sister Stella and her husband Stanley Kowalski.
Blanche arrives at the Kowalski in an elegant white suit, in white gloves and a hat - as if social acquaintances from the aristocratic region are waiting for her for a cocktail or for a cup of tea. She is so shocked by the squalor of her sister's housing that she cannot hide her disappointment. Her nerves have long been at the limit - Blanche is now and then applied to a bottle of whiskey.
During the ten years that Stella lived separately, Blanche survived a lot: her parents died, they had to sell their large, but mortgaged, re-mortgaged house, it was also called the "Dream". Stella sympathizes with her sister, but her husband Stanley meets the new relative with hostility. Stanley is the antipode of Blanche: if it looks like a fragile one-day butterfly, then Stanley Kowalski - a monkey man, with a sleeping soul and primitive requests - he “eats like an animal, walks like an animal, speaks like an animal ... him there is nothing to trump in front of people except brute force. " Symbolically, his first appearance on stage with a piece of meat in wrapping paper, thoroughly saturated with blood. Vital, rude, sensual, accustomed to appeasing himself in everything, Stanley looks like a caveman who brought his girlfriend a booty.
Suspicious of everything alien, Stanley does not believe Blanche's story about the inevitability of the sale of "Dreams" for debts, he believes that she appropriated all the money for herself, having bought expensive toilets on them. Blanche acutely feels the enemy in him, but he tries to reconcile himself, not to pretend that he saw through it, especially after learning about Stella’s pregnancy.
At the Kowalski House Blanche meets Mitch, a toolmaker, a quiet, calm person, living alone with a sick mother. Mitch, whose heart is not as coarse as his friend Stanley, is fascinated by Blanche. He likes her fragility, defenselessness, likes that she is so unlike people from his environment that he teaches literature, knows music, French.
Meanwhile, Stanley looks warily at Blanche, resembling a beast preparing to leap. Having overheard the once unpleasant opinion about himself expressed by Blanche in a conversation with his sister, learning that she considers him a miserable ignoramus, almost animal and advises Stella to leave him, he harbors evil. And such as Stanley, it’s better not to hurt - they do not know pity. Fearing Blanche’s influence on his wife, he begins to inquire about her past, and it turns out to be far from perfect. After the death of her parents and the suicide of her beloved husband, whose involuntary culprit she became, Blanche sought consolation in many beds, as Stanley told the visiting salesman, who also used her favors for some time.
Blanche's birthday is coming. She invited Mitch to dinner, who shortly before that had practically made her an offer. Blanche sings merrily while taking a bath, and meanwhile in the room Stanley announces to his wife with malice that Mitch will not come — they finally opened his eyes to this slut. And he did it himself, Stanley, telling what she was doing in her hometown - in which beds she just didn’t stay! Stella is shocked by her husband’s cruelty: marriage to Mitch would be a salvation for her sister. Coming out of the bathroom and dressed up, Blanche wonders: where is Mitch? Tries to call him at home, but he does not answer the phone. Not understanding what was going on, Blanche nevertheless prepares for the worst, and then Stanley gloatsily presents her with a “present” for her birthday — a return ticket to Laurel, the city where she came from. Seeing the confusion and horror on her sister's face, Stella passionately empathizes with her; from all these shocks, she has premature birth ...
Mitch and Blanche have a final conversation - a worker comes to a woman when she is left alone in the apartment: Kowalski took his wife to the hospital. Stung in best feelings, Mitch mercilessly tells Blanche that he finally saw through her: and her age is not what she called - not without reason she tried to meet him in the evening, somewhere in the gloom - and she’s not so touchy as she is he built himself up - he made inquiries, and everything that Stanley said was confirmed.
Blanche does not deny anything: yes, she was confused with just anyone, and there is no number for them. After the death of her husband, it seemed to her that only the caresses of strangers could somehow calm her emptied soul. In a panic, she darted from one to the other - in search of support. And having met him, Mitcha thanked God that she had finally been sent a safe haven. “I swear, Mitch,” says Blanche, “that in my heart I never lied to you.”
But Mitch is not so spiritually high as to understand and accept Blanche's words. He begins to awkwardly pester her, following the eternal male logic: if it is possible with others, then why not with me? The offended Blanche drives him away.
When Stanley returns from the hospital, Blanche has already managed to thoroughly kiss the bottle. Her thoughts are scattered, she is not quite inside herself - everything seems to her that the familiar millionaire is about to appear and take her to the sea. At first Stanley is good-natured - Stella should have a baby by morning, everything is going well, but when Blanche painfully trying to preserve the dignity, she says that Mitch came to her with a basket of roses to ask for forgiveness, he explodes. Who is she to give her roses and invite her on cruises? She's lying! There are no roses, no millionaire. The only thing she is still good for is to sleep with her once. Realizing that the business is taking a dangerous turn, Blanche tries to escape, but Stanley intercepts her at the door and carries her into the bedroom.
After everything that happened, Blanche was confused by reason. Stella, who returned from the hospital under the pressure of her husband, decides to place her sister in the hospital. She simply cannot believe the nightmare about violence - how can she then live with Stanley? Blanche thinks her friend will come for her and be lucky to rest, but when she sees the doctor and sister, she gets scared. The doctor’s gentleness — the attitude from which she’s already lost the habit — still calms her, and she dutifully follows him with the words: "It doesn’t matter who you are ... I have depended all my life on the kindness of the first person I met."
