I take hot baths for my nerves. Hydro-therapy, they call it. You healthy Polack, without a nerve in your body, of course you don’t know what anxiety feels like!
– Tennessee Williams
A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 8. Blanche tells Stanley that her frequent bathing is for her nerves and anxiety, linking to the theme of madness and mental illness. She insults Stanley by calling him a Polack, a derogatory term for a person of Polish origin. Displaying her elitism, she talks down to him as if he was from an inferior class.