In this play I felt that Sophie Treadwell descibed the different characters personalities very well. For example, the Young Woman had a slight personality of being naive and also pessimistic. She was afraid of marrying someone she wasn't in love with, therefore getting her heart broken in the end. Also, we see this later in the play when she gets involved with the "Man." She was naive when she met this young fellow in the bar and went back to his apartment and "fell in love" with his personality. However, we see him playing with her mind and not being able to settle with a relationship and stay in one place. We see her mother earlier in the play, influence her into marrying Mr. Jones because of his money, therefore forces her into marriage with him in the end, not happy.
Posted by MelissaBerg at February 22, 2005 11:44 PM | TrackBackyour right when you said that "YOUNG WOMEN", Helen, had a slight personality. If a personality at all. It was hard to feel any emotion from her, other then at the end of the play when she was thinking about her daughter.
As far as the end. Isn't it the nature of a machine to self construct after a while?
The Young Woman is an abstraction -- she's supposed to represent all women. But in order to be an interesting protagonist, she's got to have some qualities that differentiate her from the other characters. She certainly has cause to be pessimistic, but consider also her many references to curly-haired angel children... Treadwell wants to make sure we see the protagonist's soul, something that refuses to be a cog in the machine.
Kristen, do you mean "self destruct"? The sounds of the jackhammering outside the hospital window make the experience of giving birth into something mechanical, but you're right, at the end of the play she does start expressing emotion -- not only for her daughter, but also her mother.
Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz at February 23, 2005 11:51 PMI agree with you that the woman is naive and also pessimistic. I also think that her mother played a huge role in her being that way. I think there was a lack of communication between the mother and the daughter and the mother had her own best interest interest in mind. Also i think that her mother was still going on the belief of some women at that time where their jobs was just to get married and have a family. The real thing that should have been addresses was love.
Posted by: Scott Clark at February 24, 2005 02:24 PM