Blanche DuBois, a fading Southern belle, arrives to see her sister Stella in New Orleans. An alcoholic, clinging to the Southern tradition, she criticizes Stella for losing the family home to marry the rugged and crude Stanley Kowalski. Blanche lives in her own grieving, half-mad fantasy world; this ires Stanley, who ruins her relationship with another man, rapes her, and further accelerates her descent into madness.