How I Learned To Drive Play Summary

How I Learned to Drive is play about growing up and going through the different stages of life. Li’l Bit, the protagonist of the play, went through having an uncle that took advantage of her while she was growing up and dealing with the scars that it left her. The play is written in a way that is easy and allows the readers to follow along, but it is also written to make that the Uncle Peck is the one to blame and victimize Li’l Bit as well. Paula Vogel, the playwright, used characterization to help enhance her play by having a minimal cast list. She focused on Li’l Bit and Uncle Peck as the main characters so the readers will only pay attention to their movements and their mind sets. The play is written in a memorial genre, in a non-sequential order, that makes the play reflect on Li’l Bits life and how far she has come from being a little girl without any self-esteem or courage to stand up for herself. Throughout the play the reader is able to see how Li’l Bit is taken advantage of by Uncle Peck. She begins getting abused by her uncle at age eleven and stopped at the age eighteen when she was able to build the courage to tell him to stop. …show more content…
The play has comedian aspect to explain the abuse and show that the Uncle Peck is the one to blame, while victimizing Li’l Bit, but also taking the blame off of her when she committed the same acts that Uncle Peck did to her at a young age. Vogel used different characters to help enhance the play by having a minimal cast list and focusing on how each family member interacted with Li’l Bit. Overall, the play is enhanced by showing the abuse that Li’l Bit went through but how that was able to increase her self-esteem and made her have courage to end the relationship that she had with Uncle