A Family Affair

The other day in class we discussed which character within Paula Vogel’s play, How I Learned to Drive, had the power. That discussion was incredibly in depth, but somehow the issue of responsibility became entangled within it. That discussion was not elaborated on. Vogel knows the same truth anyone who’s interacted with other people could tell you; that responsibility is a difficult beast to pin down. It’s easy to point out who pushed over the chair, or who has their hand in the cookie jar. Blame is simple to assign, but true responsibility is a lot harder. Add two people and it becomes almost impossible. The problem is, and any good historian will tell you this, the winner writes the history. Is Uncle Peck to blame for what happened to ‘Lil Bit? Is he responsible? Yes in the simplest and most straight-forward way possible he is. Uncle Peck is a child molester, and that is a simple truth. He forces himself upon a child, and uses complex adult seduction and manipulation to gain ‘Lil Bit’s complicity in his sexual acts. At the same time it’s possible Uncle Peck is not entirely responsible. There is a strange difference between the way he treats ‘Lil Bit and the way he treats Bobby. His seduction method is the same at the beginning, but it’s the follow through that causes issues with Peck’s character. A child molester is a child molester because they molest children. Peck’s interest in ‘Lil Bit goes way beyond her childhood. He claims to love her, and as easy as it is to look at him and say it’s an excuse to get her to let him touch her, it doesn’t quite fit. He goes against his essential nature as a child molester by continuing to want her after she is mature. Is it the kind of love we know? Obviously not, and it’s certainly not a healthy love, but without being inside his head we can’t say it’s not love. Where is ‘Lil Bit in all this? Is she silent? I find it morally repugnant to blame a victim of sexual abuse for the abuse, and I won’t go so far as to say that ‘Lil Bit has overt blame in all of this. At the same time ‘Lil Bit responds to Peck, and it is hard for her to break away from him. She has spent so much time being loved by him it’s probably hard to let that go. Does she love him back? Maybe she does. It wouldn’t be impossible; Stockholm Syndrome is a scientifically proven emotional response. What about Peck’s death from drinking? Is ‘Lil Bit responsible for that? As a descendant of two different Irish families I know a good bit about alcoholism, and I can tell you all it takes to make a dry drunk fall is one drink. Does ‘Lil Bit know that? It’s impossible to tell; because while we know she is struggling with her own alcoholism she hasn’t tried her hand at sobriety yet. It is possible to say that when she tells him to take the drink she was angry, and so she did put it in his hand. I tend to think that given Peck’s affection for her he would have started drinking again with or without her help. Without any support system or reason to stay sober a drunk will inevitably fall again. So I don’t entirely blame Peck, but I don’t blame ‘Lil Bit much at all. So who is responsible? Who holds the most blame? Is it society for instilling certain macho preclusions within men, and for making the picture of feminine sexuality young and innocent girls? Is the chemical imbalance that causes Peck to prey on children to blame? Maybe it’s whoever abused Peck if he was abused at all. If I had to look at one cause for all the trouble I would honestly say the blame (or responsibility) has to be shared. It was Peck’s responsibility to keep the acceptable lines drawn between himself and his niece. It was his responsibility to care for her, and to treat her the way an eleven-year-old girl is supposed to be treated. So Peck is to blame for his actions in that sense. He shares the blame though with ‘Lil Bit’s family. It takes a village to raise a child is the old maxim, but in this play it took a family to make a tragedy. The Mother character puts her daughter into a position no child should ever be put in. The Aunt character senses what is happening, puts the blame on her minor niece, and then doesn’t try to stop it. Big Poppa teaches her she’s not good for anything but sex anyway and her Grandmother tells her ghost stories about sex, but encourages and allows Big Poppa’s aggressive sexual attacks in front of ‘Lil Bit. Between the group of them they give ‘Lil bit no reason not to bite onto Peck’s bait, and no safe harbor to go to when it starts. It is their responsibility to protect her and raise her to be a strong and independent woman. Instead they leave her alone constantly with a man who raises all their suspicions, almost never question her, instill a sense of blame in her, and fill her with mature sexuality and no healthy way to channel or understand it.