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Karen is rude and being unfriendly. When Paco shows his sympathy about Nora’s death by giving her a bag of fresh tomatoes from his garden because Paco
thinks they are friends, Karen unnecessarily overreacts. Instead of thanking Paco, she rudely gives the bag back to Paco in the parking lot where everybody can see the
situation they have. Not only to Paco, has Karen set herself off but also to the maid who works
daily at her house. She does not like when the main bring her daughter, who is close to Nora, to work. However Karen cannot fire the maid because Nora likes her and her
daughter. INT. MOTHER’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
Karen is tucking her mother into bed. The woman lies on her side and cuddles up in the fetal position, like a child, but remains with her eyes open. Karen
checks her mother’s fingernails for length. KAREN. These need clipping.
Nora pulls away her hand softly. KAREN CONT’D. I’m going to look for a new person for you. Sofia never
asked if I minded that she brought over the girl over while school was out. I don’t know what I would have said but she should of asked.
Nora talks without looking at Karen: NORA. You cannot fire her.
After a beat the old woman closes her eyes. Garcia, 2009: 8 The scene in Nora’s bedroom above shows the bitter side of Karen and the
disagreement between and Nora. Karen does not have any good reason why Sofia cannot bring her daughter to work; she just does not like it. Nora disagrees with
Karen. Nora does not want Sofia to be fired because she likes Sofia better. Based on the scenes that are shown above, the researcher draws a conclusion
that as a woman Karen is being a grumpy, difficult, and unfriendly person. She is
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making distance to everyone who wants to get closer to her and dislike them for no good reason.
c. Karen as a mother
Giving birth to a baby and has to give it up for adoption is never easy for any woman in this whole world, and Karen is one of those women who had to give her
baby up because she was not ready at that moment. At least, her mother thought so. Her mother was the one who made her gave up her baby.
Karen actually wonders whether her baby daughter is still alive or not, but as it is already explained before, she cannot be honest. Therefore Karen lives with the
unsent letters and gifts for her daughter to keep her sane. INT. THERAPISTS’ COMMON AREA – DAY
Karen is writing in her notebook, hunched over it like a school girl taking an exam.
KAREN V.O.. I had a new dream a couple of days ago. I come home and try to get in but my key breaks inside the lock. I look through the window and I
can see you in my bed, sleeping. I go in through the back door and I walk up
to you and smell your breath. It smells of another woman’s breast milk – not mine. And the bed is wet. You’ve wet the bed and I start to cry because I
don’t have clean sheets to make it fresh. Garcia, 2009: 8 NORA’S BEDROOM – DAY
Karen opens the curtains and takes off the sheets from her mother’s bed. KAREN V.O.. She’s gone now. She will never see your face and you will
never see hers. There will always be a silence between you. Intercut with Karen placing the urn containing her mother’s ashes on the
floor inside a closet. After placing the urn she stands there and looks at it. KAREN CONT’D. I don’t want that for us. For you and me.
Karen kneels down again, opens the urn and looks at the ashes. She smells them.
Back to Karen writing at the kitchen table. KAREN CONT’D. I know it in my heart that we will meet one day. And I
will ask you to forgive me. Garcia, 2009: 34
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In a play script we have soliloquy or aside to tell the audience how the actor or actress
feels inside, but in a screen play we have V.O or Voice Over to tell the audience the voice inside the actor or actress’ heart. Karen often writes the unsent letters for her
daughter and tells about the dreams she has because she cannot tell her mother. She is indeed unhappy and willing to meet her daughter but she does not want to make
another disappointment for her mother. Thus, she feels a bit relieved after her mother died because she knows that her daughter will never meet her mother.
From Karen’s Voice Over quotations above, it can be concluded that as a mother who never meets her child, Karen is unhappy and feeling guilty for not trying
to look for her daughter existence. It is not that Karen does not want to know whether her daughter is alive or not, but she cannot do that while her mother is still alive. She
does not want to disappoint her mother and on the other side she is trying to protect her daughter by not letting them meet each other.
2. Elizabeth
The second character is Elizabeth. Elizabeth is the most significant character in the story. She connects the first character, Karen, and the third character, Lucy.
Elizabeth is an ambitious brilliant lawyer. Elizabeth knows that her biological mother had to give her up for adoption, therefore she did not get along well with her
adoptive parents. She becomes an independent person, her adoptive father died when she was ten, and she was not really close with her adoptive mother. She chose her
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legal name, Elizabeth Joyce, for herself in junior high. She lives alone since she was seventeen years old Garcia, 2009: 4. However, Elizabeth is still suspecting that her
biological mother is still alive. As a successful lawyer, she is intimidating and self- dominated. She does not believe in the concept of family and does not want to
marry. When she is incidentally impregnated by her boss, Paul, she runs away from Paul and quit her job. Elizabeth dies in the end of story when she gives birth to a
baby girl that later is being adopted by Lucy, the third character that will be discussed later in this thesis.
a. Elizabeth as a daughter
As it has been explained before, Elizabeth is the child Karen gave up as a baby when she was born. Unfortunately, she is not close to her adoptive parents. Her
adoptive father died when she was ten and she cannot get along with her adoptive mother.
As a daughter who knows that she had been given up by her biological mother when she was a baby, Elizabeth is angry because she feels her real mother never try
to look for her. Her anger makes her doubts in the concept of family and she lives in a singular word and responsible only for herself. She becomes independent that she
even decides her own legal last name for herself. PAUL. Tell me a little about your personal background.
Elizabeth thinks about it for a moment. ELIZABETH. I was born here, in Los Angeles, and I was given up for
adoption on the day of my birth. My mother was fourteen when I was born.
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That is all I know about her. My adoptive father died when I was ten. My adoptive mother and I are not close. My name, Elizabeth Joyce, is a name that
I picked out for myself in junior high school. It’s my legal name now; I don’t go by any other. I live alone; I have
since I turned seventeen. I’ve never been married and have no plans to marry. I value my independence above all
things. That way I don’t have expectations to fulfill. Other than my own, which are great enough. Garcia, 2009: 4
Paul is the owner of the law firm where Elizabeth works as a lawyer. Elizabeth tells
him that she lives alone since she turned seventeen and decided her own legal name. Elizabeth is hurt because she feels her biological mother never tries to search
for her. She moves to Los Angeles, the place where she was born, to find out whether her mother looks for her or not but she finds nothing. She is really upset because of
this fact. PAUL. They may be looking for you.
ELIZABETH. There is no “they’. The father is not a part of my imagination. A beat.
ELIZABETH CONT’D. I live in her home town – how hard could it be for Her Fucking Majesty to find me? Garcia, 2009: 57
Elizabeth knows that her biological parents are not married, however, when Paul asks
why she did not look for her biological mother she also questions why her mother did not do the same thing to look for her. She is in the town where her mother lives and it
is not hard to find her if her mother really looks for her. What Elizabeth says is implicitly depicts that Elizabeth is actually hurt because she moves back to Los
Angeles but her real mother does not try to look for her. As a daughter who never meets her biological mother Elizabeth feels she
deserves to be angry at her biological mother because she feels that her mother is never trying to find out about her existence. She moves outside Los Angeles and
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moves back again for several times because she has her own reason. She does not get along with her adoptive mother thus she grows up independently and lives in her
singular world by herself since she was seventeen. b. Elizabeth as a woman
Elizabeth works as a lawyer. She is great at her work Garcia, 2009: 2. As a lawyer, she admits that she is a dominating person and she knows that she is
threatening for other women since she does not believe in the value of sisterhood Garcia, 2009: 3. She also purposely ruins
her neighbor’s happy marriage by sleeping with the husband, because she knows she can do that to the neighbor’s wife
who is a talkative woman Garcia, 2009: 43-43A. As a woman who has a bitter family background, Elizabeth herself does not
want to plan to have family so she tied her tubes and planning to not having children. ELEANOR. What do you do for birth control?
ELIZABETH. My tubes are tied. Eleanor takes notes.
ELEANOR. How long have they been tied? ELIZABETH. Since I was seventeen. Garcia, 2009: 51
The dialogue above clearly depicts that Elizabeth does not want to have a family
because she has her tubes tied since she was still seventeen years old. Normally, women will tie their tubes when they already have more than one child because it is
a permanent birth control http:www.drweil.comdrwuQAA358347Tying-Your- Tubes-Birth-Control.html, 13 January 2013 but since Elizabeth does not plan to
have a kid so she did the procedure even before she gets married.
