How I Learned to Drive, a dramatic comedy by Paula Vogel, is a play that is as funny as it is disturbing. Set in suburban Maryland, it deals with a young girl, nicknamed Lil' Bit, and her sexual relationship with her uncle, nicknamed Peck. The story is told though a series of flashbacks from Lil' Bit as she sees things at thirty-five years old. The first time her uncle sexually molested Lil' Bit, he was teaching her to drive a car, so from then on her relationship with him is seen through driving lessons. Coming of age is in one way marked by learning to drive, and in the play Vogel explores the fragile innocence of that time in a girl's life. In How I Learned to Drive, Vogel unravels what happens when gender roles, are over sexualized in a family setting, name
ly that everything begins to be viewed through the lens of sex.
Her relationship with Uncle Peck is something that haunts Lil' Bit through age thirty-five. She has suffered a series of failed relationships with men, and as she drives her car away at the end, the spirit of Uncle Peck watches from the back seat. Because she was so over-sexualized as a child, she has a hard time making the transition of viewing sexuality from an adult perspective. Vogel brings out the danger in this, and this play is highly applicable to this society. In popular culture very young girls are often shown as sex symbols. There are many young girl performers who dress like they are twenty-five. This gives a me
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