Marsha Norman's Night
Marsha Norman’s ‘night, Mother illustrates a central point about the nature of what creates drama in a play: the anticipation of an outcome. In this case, that means that Mama, and the story's audience, learns early on of Jessie's plans. And because of learning Jessie's plans, both Mama and the story's audience are thrust deep into the heart of this story's question: Will Jessie really kill herself, or can Mama find a way to stop her? What's at stake in this story is also made very clear: Jessie's going to kill herself. Can Mama talk her out of it? The central issue that 'night, Mother delivers is that the more reasons Mama tries to grasp to convince Jessie not to kill herself, the more ...
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request odd. She evens helps Jessie figure out where the gun is kept. It's not until half a column later that Mama asks:
MAMA: What do you want the gun for, Jess?
JESSIE: Protection.
Mama at first considers that she and Jessie have nothing to steal, and what was valuable was stolen by Jessie's son, Ricky.
MAMA: I mean, I don't even want what we got, Jessie.
Jessie begins cleaning the gun, and soon the stage directions set out that Mama is now concerned about it.
JESSIE: The gun is for me.
MAMA: Well, you can have it if you want. When
I die, you'll get it anyway.
JESSIE: I'm going to kill myself, Mama.
At first Mama yells at Jessie for her bad "joke," but Jessie patiently insists she's serious. Mama then insists the gun won't work because the bullets are fifteen years old. Jessie tells her that Dawson, her brother, told her where to buy new bullets. As Jessie describes Dawson's enthusiasm for telling her about bullets, the author has found another avenue to ...
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radio when there's nothing on I want to listen to.
This brillantly written line cuts right through to the heart of Jessie's reasons for wanting to die.
In the next series of exchanges, it comes out why a friend of Mama's refuses to come into her house, because she's seen the death in Jessie's eyes. The struggle to find peace in death has caused Jessie to explore the reality of her life. For probably the first time ever in their relationship, Mama begins to speak a deeper truth to Jessie. This leads Jessie to ask whether her mother ever loved her father. Again, Mama speaks a truth she's never voiced before. It leads up to a revelation that Mama suspected that Jessie's father also ...
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Marsha Norman's Night. (2008, January 13). Retrieved April 20, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Marsha-Normans-Night/77418
"Marsha Norman's Night." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 13 Jan. 2008. Web. 20 Apr. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Marsha-Normans-Night/77418>
"Marsha Norman's Night." Essayworld.com. January 13, 2008. Accessed April 20, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Marsha-Normans-Night/77418.
"Marsha Norman's Night." Essayworld.com. January 13, 2008. Accessed April 20, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Marsha-Normans-Night/77418.
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