’night, Mother | ’night, Mother

At a glance:

Author: Marsha Williams
First Published: 1983
Type of Work: Drama
Type of Plot: Social realism
Time of Work: A Saturday night in the present
Setting: A comfortable house in the country
Principal Characters: Jessie Cates, Thelma Cates (Mama), Dawson Cates, Cecil, Ricky, Agnes Fletcher
Genres: Domestic realism, Drama, Psychological drama, Domestic tragedy
Subjects: 1970’s, United States or Americans, Memory, Mothers, Parents and children, Suicide, Communication, Alienation, 1980’s, Honesty, Pain, Death or dying, Depression, mental, Truthfulness and falsehood, Loneliness, Life and death, Happiness, Epilepsy
Locales: United States

The entire drama of ’night, Mother is a conversation between mother and daughter which begins about 8:15 on a Saturday evening. There is no intermission. Clocks are visible onstage in the kitchen and the living room and run throughout the play; Jessie, her mother, and the audience are clearly aware of the time passing moment by moment, and during one tense moment Jessie winds the small clock on the table. The house is relatively new and is on a country road. Jessie spends the evening preparing for her suicide and attempting to explain her reason for...

’night, Mother | ’night, Mother

At a glance:

Form and Content

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