Learning About How I
Learned to Drive
A Cory Vincent Column
How I Learned to Drive is the quintessential play about perspective and boundaries. Vogel gives us this picture of a girl and her uncle, supported by a near-faceless “Greek” chorus. Like a lot of things in her plays, Vogel desires to tell us about boundaries using this false chorus. By separating Uncle Peck and Lil Bit from the rest of the world, she gives us this idea that their love exists in a vacuum. If they were left to their own devices, it seems like this love would be no problem to anyone. If society and its rules would just leave them alone, they would have no conflict whatsoever. It is only when the world intervenes that the problems truly arise. The Chorus is designed to illustrate this separation, among many other tiny moments in the play.
As for what does and does not make sense, for me it was all about separating Lil’ Bit and Uncle Peck themselves. For me, the Chorus was serving that function, to separate them from the world, so I was puzzled by why she would choose to separate them from each other. As I read and re-read, I might have an answer to that question, but it is shaky in its foundation. To me, separation of the two lovers until the very is done as a product of the order in which the story is told. We aren’t being given the story in any linear fashion, but instead almost as just a series of remembrances. The girl we see talking to us has already experienced these memories, and has moved past them (we are told Uncle Peck stops speaking to her eventually). Thus, she is, literally, separated from them. We can also see it as an emotional distance. Lil’ Bit, now older and more mature, can really take the time the look at the relationship she had with Uncle Peck. She can “pull it apart” and analyze the function of that union. I think that the re-uniting of the two in the final scene is then extremely important. She has chosen, as she says near the end of the play, that she doesn’t judge or remember this as something she should lock down or put away. She simply remembers driving with her uncle.
A Cory Vincent Column
How I Learned to Drive is the quintessential play about perspective and boundaries. Vogel gives us this picture of a girl and her uncle, supported by a near-faceless “Greek” chorus. Like a lot of things in her plays, Vogel desires to tell us about boundaries using this false chorus. By separating Uncle Peck and Lil Bit from the rest of the world, she gives us this idea that their love exists in a vacuum. If they were left to their own devices, it seems like this love would be no problem to anyone. If society and its rules would just leave them alone, they would have no conflict whatsoever. It is only when the world intervenes that the problems truly arise. The Chorus is designed to illustrate this separation, among many other tiny moments in the play.
As for what does and does not make sense, for me it was all about separating Lil’ Bit and Uncle Peck themselves. For me, the Chorus was serving that function, to separate them from the world, so I was puzzled by why she would choose to separate them from each other. As I read and re-read, I might have an answer to that question, but it is shaky in its foundation. To me, separation of the two lovers until the very is done as a product of the order in which the story is told. We aren’t being given the story in any linear fashion, but instead almost as just a series of remembrances. The girl we see talking to us has already experienced these memories, and has moved past them (we are told Uncle Peck stops speaking to her eventually). Thus, she is, literally, separated from them. We can also see it as an emotional distance. Lil’ Bit, now older and more mature, can really take the time the look at the relationship she had with Uncle Peck. She can “pull it apart” and analyze the function of that union. I think that the re-uniting of the two in the final scene is then extremely important. She has chosen, as she says near the end of the play, that she doesn’t judge or remember this as something she should lock down or put away. She simply remembers driving with her uncle.
This is an interesting perspective on the purpose of the greek chorus in the play. I just assumed that other characters would be a distraction to the main relationship between Peck and Li'l Bit. I guess this idea is just another step further in saying these distractions would be the reason they fall apart.
ReplyDelete