Blanche DuBois is a fading but still attractive Southern belle, whose manners and pretension of virtue thinly mask her alcoholism and delusions of grandeur. She clings to the illusions of beauty and her meager possessions, both to shield herself from reality and to attract new suitors.
Blanche leaves her hometown of Laurel, Mississippi to visit her sister, Stella Kowalski, in the French Quarter of New Orleans. She is told "to take a streetcar named Desire, transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at – Elysian Fields!"
The steamy, urban ambiance is a shock to Blanche's nerves.
Stella is thrilled to see Blanche but dismayed at how her husband Stanley will react when he learns that her family's plantation, Belle Reve, was lost due to the "epic debauchery" of her ancestors, according to Blanche. Blanche says she has taken a leave from her job as an English teacher because of her nerves, but in reality she was fired for having an affair with a 17-year-old male student.
An early marriage left emotional scars after the suicide of her husband, Allan Grey, and now she plans to stay with Stella and Stanley in their cramped apartment indefinitely.
Blanche comments freely on her perceptions of Stanley, and his relationship with Stella. He is a force of nature: primal, rough-hewn, brutish and sensual, who dominates Stella in every way, including physical and emotional abuse. When they fight she runs upstairs to the neighbors but she always comes back. Stella's attraction to him overwhelms her breeding and sensitivity, and is compounded by the knowledge that she is now pregnant.
Blanche's prolonged presence in their home upsets their routine, and Stella's concern for her sister's well-being emboldens Blanche to hold court in the Kowalski apartment, infuriating Stanley. One of Stanley's friends, Harold "Mitch" Mitchell, is smitten with Blanche and indulges her, accepting her stories at face value.
However, Stanley sets out to discover the truth behind her embellished tales, and cruelly confronts her after he learns what happened back in Laurel. He ridicules her marriage, her string of affairs with young men and students, and her conduct in the loss of the plantation.
Their final confrontation – a rape – results in Blanche's nervous breakdown. Stanley has her committed to a mental institution, and as the doctor takes Blanche away Mitch tries to assault Stanley. But Mitch is restrained by their other friends, and begins to weep. As the other men look on, Stanley claims he "never once touched her".
Devastated by her sister's fate, Stella rejects Stanley and pushes him away. She runs out to see Blanche off, but is too late, as the car has already gone. Stanley calls out for Stella, and as he cries her name once more ("Stella! Hey, Stella!"), she vows that she is never going back to Stanley, and runs upstairs again, with their baby, to seek refuge with her neighbors.