Place
Place plays a thematically important role in August: Osage County
and affects all of the characters. In the broader sense, many of the characters
complain about living in Oklahoma. Early in the play, Barbara makes the
distinction that Oklahoma is not the Midwest but the Plains. She takes the idea
one step further and jokingly compares the Plains to an illness. Later,
when she is reunited with Sheriff Deon Gilbeau, she brings up the idea more
seriously, telling him she is suffering from “The Plains.”
Letts presents a bleak view of this part of the country, and all three
daughters struggle to break away from the place in which they were born.
Barbara has left for Colorado, pointing out to her mother that he makes twice
as much money as he did teaching in Oklahoma. Karen has moved numerous times,
and is currently living in Miami. Ivy is the sister left behind, and she seeks
to escape to New York City with Little Charles. Ivy is most clearly aware of
the stakes for her departure because she has seen the dead-end her life has
taken.
The Weston sisters are not only trying to escape Oklahoma, they are also trying
to escape their parents’ house. Letts includes very specific stage directions
about the condition of the house, and how it transforms over the course of the
play. At the opening, the house is closed off, filthy, and frozen in time. As
the story progresses, the house improves because of two key characters: Johnna
and Barbara. When Beverly hires Johnna at the beginning of the play, he gives
her the power to transform the Weston household. Under her guidance, the house
becomes cleaner and more organized. Regular meals replace the sandwiches and
crackers that Violet and Beverly used to eat. The next level of transformation
happens through Barbara. Her husband organizes the family’s financial affairs
while Barbara attempts rid the house of drugs and detoxify her mother. Without
Barbara and Johnna, the Weston house (and Violet herself) would fall further
and further into disrepair. Tellingly, everyone escapes from the house by the
end of the play except for Violet and Johnna. Violet remains because she has
nowhere else to go and no one wants her. Johnna stays simply because it is her
job, and Barbara has vowed to continue her employment. In the end, Letts
presents the house as a parallel to Violet: both are moderately cleaned up, but
both have something inescapably toxic at their cores.
Marriage and Romantic Relationships
Marriage and romantic relationships are themes that are closely linked to
the ideas of place. All of the romantic relationships in the play are failures,
as if the people had absorbed the toxicity of the house and environment.
Barbara and Bill’s marriage ends during the course of the play; Karen caps a
long string of failed relationships with her engagement to Steve, which she
vows to maintain despite his pedophiliac tendencies; Ivy only finds romance
with a family member; and Charlie and Mattie Fae bicker with each other
constantly. The most destructive relationship and the one which arguably
perpetuates the others is the one between Violet and Beverly.
Although we only meet Beverly in the Prologue, his lengthy monologues establish the dysfunctional nature of his marriage all too clearly (he even compares it to T. S. Eliot’s stormy union). Each has descended into addiction, she to barbiturates and painkillers, he to alcohol. When Violet reveals she knew Beverly was at the motel before he drowned himself, she describes it as a power play between the two of them. In Violet’s mind, waiting until...
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Monday to call and check on her suicidal husband was an act of strength. Although Letts never reveals the specifics of Beverly’s note, it seems as if it was a last-ditch effort by Beverly to make some kind of honest connection with his wife. Ironically, his death acts as a catalyst for his entire family, some of whom have the potential to avoid repeating his mistakes.
Abuse
The notion of abuse also recurs throughout August: Osage County.
Violet verbally abuses everyone around and does so in the name of honesty and
concern. When Barbara criticizes her for this behavior during the disastrous
funeral dinner, Violet reveals a possible source for her own destructive
behavior. She recalls being attacked as a child with a claw hammer, only
surviving because of Mattie Fae’s intervention. In Violet’s eyes, Barbara, Ivy,
and Karen had a better childhood because they were not physically assaulted.
Later, when confronting Jean about her inappropriate relationship with Steve,
Barbara slaps her daughter. When Jean exits angrily, Barbara is disgusted with
her own behavior. Letts presents physically and verbally abusive behavior as a
kind of generational cycle. Tying it to the theme of place, Letts’s characters
must escape the house, the town, and the state if they have any hope of ending
the cycle.