Just open your eyes, honey. All right then. I just want you to listen. Of your own free will. Just lie down on the bed with me — our clothes on — just lie down with me, a man and a woman Nothing else. Before you say anything else. I want the chance to Who did it to you, Uncle Peck? How old were you? Were you eleven? Sometimes I think of my uncle as a kind of Flying Dutch man.
In the opera, the Dutchman is doomed to wander the sea; but every seven years he can come ashore, and if he finds a maiden who will love him of her own free will — he will be released. Release him. As Mother. I am not letting an eleven-year-old girl spend seven hours alone in the car with a man Just because you lost your husband — I still deserve a chance at having a father!
A man who will look out for me! I will feel terrible if something happens. Nothing will happen! I can take care of myself.
And I can certainly handle Uncle Peck. All right. You tell me whether to go faster or slower —. She relaxes against him, silent, accepting his touch. Keep driving. He slips his hands under her blouse. Trying not to cry. Peck tenses more, sharply.
On a day like today. I filled the tank last night, and had the oil checked. Checked the tires, too. How I Learned to Drive. Plot Summary. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of every Shakespeare play.
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Be the first to ask a question about How I Learned to Drive. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of How I Learned to Drive. Jul 16, Brina rated it really liked it Shelves: great-books-women , pulitzer-winner , plays. These range anywhere from 13th century trailblazing classics to modern classics novels and nonfiction. Looking to finish my year with a round number of books read, I selected Paula Vogel's Pulitzer winning drama How I Learned to Drive, a play with a double meaning that focuses on the difficult subject of sexual abuse and molestation.
While I was disturbed while reading through thi An ongoing personal project of mine is reading the books featured in Great Books By Women by Erica Bauermeister. While I was disturbed while reading through this script, I found Vogel's work to be a worthy read.
It is the late s in rural Maryland. Three generations of a family live on a farming compound far removed from any other people. Rumor has it that members of this family receive their nicknames for their sexual prowess or genitalia rather than for a moniker or characteristic. As this is pointed out in the script's opening pages, it lead to a disturbing feeling from the onset. Vogel focuses on teenaged Lil' Bit through various stages of her life.
A seventeen year old who has grown up with her grandparents, mother, aunt, and lewd uncle, she is determined to break out of the family's mold and be the first to attend college. Vogel hints that she has received a scholarship to go to either an Ivy League or top woman's school; the family should be proud of her, but in their ignorance, they remain indifferent. Consequently, Lil' Bit is pining to leave her insular home.
Employing a Greek chorus to show both flashbacks and later stages of Lil' Bit's life, Vogel shows how sexual molestation she was subject to as a child affected her throughout her life.
The chorus is accompanied by popular s and s music but as I read rather than watched the play, the music had little effect on me. What did have a profound effect on me was the inappropriate relationship between Lil' Bit and her pedophile uncle Peck and the inability of Lil' Bit's mother or aunt Peck's wife to stop it.
Lil' Bit's father was no where to be found in her life, and she grew up without a father figure in her life, besides for Peck. From the time she reached prepubescence, he cast his leery eyes at her. Her mother must have known, but, seeing that her daughter needed a replacement father, did nothing, making me sick. Vogel points that an innuendo episode from when Lil' Bit turned eleven essentially ended her ownership of her body.
While this was meant to draw attention to pedophilia, it still made this script difficult to read; especially as this inappropriateness was happening to a younger girl. And yet, I read on to the conclusion. Lil' Bit ages and Peck is determined to teach her how to 'drive.
Unfortunately, he would like to teach her more than how to drive a car, but also how to control her body. Now that Lil' Bit has moved past puberty, Peck desires her all the more. On these driving sessions, he puts his hand down her shirt and inside her underwear, and she is powerless to stop it. On the contrary, as her body matures, she desires these advances to a certain extent, even though she inherently knows that they are wrong. I hoped and prayed that Vogel would allow Lil' Bit to have some ownership over her body as she has hinted that she is a smart student, leaving for college soon.
Yet, book smarts do not always translate to street smarts, and Vogel paints a fine line between the two. Consequently, I awaited the scene where Lil' Bit finally leaves home and finds herself out of Peck's clutches, hopefully realizing how inappropriate his behavior toward her was when she enters into the company of less insular adults. Vogel's drama won the Pulitzer, but she has written many other feminist leaning plays over the course of her career as well.
While How I Learned to Drive may have been one of the most difficult reads that I have read this year, I found this play necessary as pedophilia is unfortunately an issue that is never going to go away. Having daughters at home, I found this play even more disturbing as Lil' Bit was abused from the time she was eleven or possibly younger.
I would hope that this play is taught in some form, even if it is excerpts, in high school English classes, so that girls would have guidance in avoiding pedophiles. That being said, this play is not for the weak hearted but is a necessary read in terms of being informed.
View all 3 comments. Jun 14, Chelsea rated it it was ok Shelves: plays. It's a short play that chronicles the relationship between a girl and her uncle and her coming of age. I don't particularly care for the "Greek chorus" performing all the characters besides Lil'bit and Uncle Peck; I feel that in performance this would be akward and confusing.
Honestly, I felt it to be a bit of useless obfuscation anyway, since these chorus members are almost always the same character ea I took a break from my current reading to read the play How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel. Honestly, I felt it to be a bit of useless obfuscation anyway, since these chorus members are almost always the same character each time they appear.
In performance I would eliminate this layer of abstraction and cast actors for each of the principle individual roles. Initially I was a bit turned off by the spoken 'titles' that divide the play, but I feel that, done well, they would help facilitate the transitions between scenes.
Otherwise, I liked the play. It was about the right length, with about the right amount of character development. If anything, I would have liked to have known a little more about Lil'bit, but I can't think of a good way to do that, so I certainly can't hold it against Ms. May 31, amanda jane rated it it was amazing Shelves: plays. Aug 10, Aaron rated it really liked it. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Vogel does not, thank goodness, run with this piece in the way of an expository PSA. Good theatre never does this, and Vogel obviously creates excellent drama. Instead, she proceeds to set a tone of normality as the plot unfolds. Three things stuck out to me about this play: 1 This play could be ruined literally at any moment by portraying Peck as too much of a creeper; no doubt about it, from the opening scene he obviously has some issues and they are obviously repulsive.
Yet throughout the play there are moments of humanity breathed into the character; at moments he is smart and polite, and the whole business of something happening during the war makes him a bit sympathetic. I doubt the intent of the play is to portray a sad story of a man who is simply confused, but neither do I think we are supposed to have the conviction of his wife as to his moral character.
This is the case with Lil Bit as well, she is not guilty but not altogether innocent, though she is far less in the wrong than Peck. She once again retreats to Peck when an argument erupts. He tells her that men are confident drivers and that he wants to teach her to drive like a man.
At a sock hop, a boy whose gaze is fixated on her chest continues to ask her to dance. The classmate says she wishes she had her problems and that she should go easy on the boy. He promises not to show them to anyone and that he loves her. The packages contain notes in which he counts down the days until she returns. She then flashes back to when, at 11 years old, she took a long car ride with Uncle Peck.
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