Contemporary Play Analysis 1

Contemporary Play Analysis

‘Night, Mother

Playwright: Marsha Norman

By: Crystal McIntosh

THEATRE APPRECIATION M W at 10:00 AM

Date: 02/24/2021
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I. Plot

‘night Mother takes place in the living room and kitchen of Mother Thelma Cates
and her daughter Jessie's rural home. As shown on a clock on stage, the play follows
real time. The length of the hour and a half of the play matches exactly the hour and a
half of dialogue and action between the opening lines of Thelma and her final call to
Jessie 's brother to tell him of the death of his sister.

Mother opens the night with Jessie Cates asking her mom for a piece of plastic
sheeting and for the location of her dad's gun. After Jessie finds the gun hidden in the
old shoe box in the attic, she starts cleaning the gun. As she does, she calmly tells her
mother that she intends to commit suicide later that night. She is accompanying this
announcement with chatter that describes the ease with which she bought the
ammunition and even delivered it to her rural home. Thelma disbelieved it at first. When
she realizes that Jessie is serious, she attempts to dissuade her. Taking little note of her
mother’s arguments, Jessie continues with her preparations for death. She cleans the
refrigerator and instructs her mother on how to order groceries, how to use the washer
and dryer, and when to put out the garbage. She tells Thelma that she has stopped
delivery of the daily paper, ordered her favorite candy for her, and arranged to continue
the delivery of milk, although her mother prefers soda or orangeade. Jessie has even
prepared a Christmas list of gift suggestions for her brother for the next several years.

To keep her mother occupied and establish a sense of order, Jessie asks her to
make some hot chocolate for her, yet she does not drink it because she doesn't like
milk. Clearly, the purpose of making hot chocolate was to distract her mother from the
announcement that Jessie had just made. While these things are going on, Jessie
maintains a flood of gossip about her mother's friends and her relatives. This gossip
tells the audience that Jessie is in her thirties, divorced, unemployed, and that she is in
her thirties.

It also reveals that her mother's best friend is no longer going to visit her because
Jessie's presence makes her unhappy. The dialog paints an image of a mother who has
adopted an aura of helplessness so that she can give her daughter’s life a purpose. She
will do the little things that Jessie does for her, get her prescriptions and go shopping,
but she also encourages her daughter to take on certain duties.

Jessie sees herself as having no future at all. She is an epileptic who just leaves
her farmhouse to go to the hospital after a seizure. She is divorced from a man she still
loves, but the audience discovers that, given the ultimatum of either choosing to smoke
or to stop and stay with her husband, Jessie has opted to smoke. Thelma, however,
said Cecil's husband was unfaithful, having had an affair with his neighbor 's daughter.
The son of Jessie, Ricky, is a thief and a drug Addict, and while Jessie's mother
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believes the boy is going to outgrow these tendencies, Jessie sees no hope. Jessie tells
her mother that she commits suicide because she sees no point in living her life as
hollow as she has become. She can only imagine the next fifty years of the same
emptiness, and she can see no point in continuing. Jessie uses the Bus Trip Metaphor
to explain the justification for killing herself. She says it does not matter if you are fifty
blocks away from your stop when you get off because it is going to be the same stop
right now as it's going to be in those fifty blocks/fifty years. Jessie has a life that, from
her point of view, has no promise and no future. Jessie's mother, Thelma, shares the
secrets of her family in her effort to avoid Jessie 's planned suicide. She informs Jessie
that her seizures are not the product of a horse fall, but she has had it since her early
childhood. Thelma also tells her daughter that the epilepsy has been inherited and that
her father has also suffered from the condition. As Thelma reveals how hollow her
marriage was, the audience learns from Thelma's envy of her daughter's close
relationship with her father. As her husband was dying, Thelma left him to watch the
western Gunsmoke series on TV because he refused to speak to her. Yet she's telling
Jessie what she and she are telling.

Their relationship makes it clear that Thelma and Jessie love each other, but to
Jessie, her mother's love is not justification enough to remain alive. Thelma pleads with
Jessie; she persuades her with stories. The mother's desperation is obvious, as is her
love for her daughter. In the last moments of the play, a desperate Thelma clings to her
impassive daughter and is pushed aside as Jessie leaves the room with a mute
farewell, "'night, Mother." She locks herself in her bed. The play ends with the sound of
a gunshot followed by Thelma's crying call to her son.

II. Characters

Jessie. Is in her mid-thirties or early forties. She suffers from epilepsy, and this,
coupled with her perceived lack of relationship, provokes her decision to commit
suicide. She sees this act as the sole way of asserting power over her life. She has got
an ex-husband she really loves. Her marriage was precipitated by her mother (if not fully
arranged) when Thelma employed Cecil to build a porch she did not need. Jessie has a
son, Ricky, who is a petty thief and has drug problems. Jessie's epilepsy has made it
difficult for her to function for much of her life. As the play starts, drugs seem to have
brought the disease under control, but Jessie is too afraid of the outside world to
venture into it. She sees her life as hollow, without meaning, and without a future; an
existence that is beyond her control to change. Jessie suffered several losses: the
death of her father, the break-up of her marriage, the missing son she sees as a failure,
and the death of her dog. Her combined depression and fear of contact with people
other than her mother led her to conclude that the future has little chance of
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improvement or any gain in autonomy; Jessie feels that she is a puppet acting out a life
she has no authorship of.

Thelma. The mother of Jessie. She is a widow, and she has another child, a son
named Dawson, who lives with his wife. In the play, she reveals that she never loved
Jessie 's father, and that she had little contact. She spends a lot of her time on
needlework, and her designs clutter the family home. At first sight, she seems to be an
elderly woman who is dependent on her daughter for many daily needs. Through the
course of the match, though, it becomes obvious that she has enabled Jessie to take on
these duties, not because she was unable to do it, but because she felt that Jessie
needed a target.

At Jessie's declaration that she plans to commit suicide, Thelma demonstrates a series
of emotions: disbelief, rage, fear, depression, and, finally, a degree of acceptance. She
loves her daughter and makes every effort to speak to her about killing herself. Yet
there are intimations in the play that many of Jessie 's issues may have been triggered
by Thelma 's actions towards and care of her daughter.

III. Setting

The location for 'night, Mother is an unnamed midwestern town. The action starts
at night and finishes ninety minutes later; the one act takes place in the living room and
kitchen of the Cates' residence. The situation of Norman is produced to be universal, so
the time is relatively unimportant, and the position could be any area, any evening.

IV. Given Circumstances

When I saw the title of the play, I thought that it was maybe a nice bedtime story. To my
surprise it was far from it. Themes include the complex relationships between mothers
and daughters, self-determination in the face of suicide, and the painful reality of
loneliness. It has a lot to do with mental health. This play is about suicide as a result of
isolation and loneliness. Which most likely fit into any of local events/current events
categories. This is because there are local/current events that happen around us like
murder, rape, kidnapping, etc. The news is one place where one can be aware of
everything that is happening today. Additionally, this is where many of these
local/current events are brought to: the news. The effect that local/current events have
on the play is that it can bring awareness to suicide, mental health and the importance
of not isolating your child from the real world, which is a common by parents.

V. Conclusion
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This play is very unique. In fact, it is not only a new approach to the challenging issue of
suicide, but it takes on a wide range of concerns, such as the stigma of illness and
being 'different,' as well as the rights and obligations of families, individuals and society
at large. It also raises a very serious and controversial question as to whether suicide
can be a 'solitary act.' What affected me the most was even though Thelma tried to be
there for her daughter after confessing to wanting to kill herself, Jessie at the end of the
play closes her door and still decides to kill herself. At the end of the play, I was left with
sympathy for both characters at the end of the play, but it is Mama who's left to make
phone calls. I was left with two messages from this unique play. One of the messages
that I got from this play is that a fateful encounter can result in the direction and course
that your life takes. This can be with a family member, significant other, role models,
and friends. In this case, it was Jessie’s husband. In my opinion, once her “fateful
encounter” was removed from her life, it determined where her life would go from there.
Another message that I got from this play is that it is possible to triumph over adversity
and overcome personal obstacles. I recognized that I am not alone, and I can simply
reach out for help because it is not the end of the word. Furthermore, when it comes to
spirituality, you can pray or do quiet soul-searching once you have analyzed your
obstacle(s). I enjoyed this play mainly because it had a different approach. It is a
perfect play for me, because like all the great plays, it leaves one with more questions
than answers, but along the way it manages to captivate and hold attention for the
entire 90 minutes of its course, while grappling with emotionally complex, disturbing and
provocative issues. ‘Night Mother is more than just a “fine production” and therefore, I
highly recommend it.
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