AndrewLoNigro

FAITH. I’ve always thought it was my fault that you were so unhappy.
EVELYN. I am not unhappy. Heavens knows why you are.
FAITH. Because of you
EVELYN. Don’t talk such nonsense.
This play is filled with so many emotions. It’s so interesting because instead of reading it through one character’s eyes, the author gives you the chance to see this incident from many different view points. It was so enjoyable to read because of this. There’s the viewpoint of Lil, Eva the young girl, Evelyn the grown girl, Faith, the daughter of the one who was saved, and Helga, the mother who sent her child to safety from the Germans. I think a reader’s outlook of the play is extremely dependant upon what experience the reader has with any of the character types in it.
In the quote above, Faith is shown as self-centered. Since I am not a mother, I can’t say much about how Evelyn has dealt with her situation, but I can see that Faith is obviously not respecting her mother. Faith is only worried about how her mother’s past affects her. She should be trying to help her mother or at least be considerate and understanding of what she had to go through.
In this play, Evelyn’s character seems to be very laid back. She doesn’t seem to have that nervous, anxiousness about her like other mother characters we’ve read about in plays so far this year. Amanda from “The Glass Menagerie,” was obviously more hyper-active towards her children, as was Nora from “A Doll’s House.”
Denamarie talked about the mother/daughter relationship at the end of the play. She said, “Evelyn and her mother do not have a great relationship at the end of the play. Evelyn blames her mother for everything that has ever happened to her.” I feel that this is very true, however, I feel that Faith has done the same thing to Evelyn as what Evelyn did to Helga. She seems to blame her for her problems as well.
This play is very deep and it was a joy to read. I’ve studied the Holocaust before and this play even taught me more about the troubles that people had to face. It’s unreal to me to have to send your child, your life, somewhere else and stay where you are especially after your husband dies. I find it difficult to blame Helga or Evelyn because they both were in hard situations in which they had to change their lives.