Coming of Age
Eugene Jerome, the main character in Brighton Beach Memoirs, is about to turn fifteen and is navigating the challenging phase of adolescence. Caught between being a child and an adult, Eugene often feels like he's at his mother's beck and call, making several trips to the store each day. Despite these errands, he isn't required to work to support his family and continues his education. Eugene is confronted with significant life choices: he aspires to be either a baseball player or a writer, while his family encourages him to pursue college. He is also starting to notice girls and frequently turns to his older brother for guidance. His brother, Stanley, educates him about masturbation and even gives him a postcard of a naked woman. Eugene has a crush on his attractive sixteen-year-old cousin, Nora. Although Eugene's teenage concerns might seem minor compared to his family's more significant challenges, by the end of the play, he achieves a greater understanding, signifying the beginning of his path to maturity.
Family
In Brighton Beach Memoirs, the importance of family is a key theme, with all characters linked through family ties. After Blanche's husband, Dave, passed away six years ago, the Jerome family welcomed Blanche and her daughters into their home. Both Jack and Stanley work hard to support Blanche's family along with their own. Blanche helps out by taking in sewing work. As the play nears its end, it is revealed that some of Jack's relatives have escaped the German Nazi invasion in Poland and are on their way to New York City. The family works together to find a way to accommodate these new arrivals.
Despite the cramped living conditions and occasional lack of privacy, the Jerome/Morton family members care for each other. Jack never complains about holding down two jobs to support seven people. Stanley feels deep remorse when he loses his paycheck in a poker game, knowing how vital the money is for the family. Although Eugene sometimes feels frustrated by his mother's constant nagging and frequent trips to the grocery store, he helps keep the household running smoothly. While family members, especially Blanche and her daughter Nora, as well as Blanche and Kate, often have arguments, their family bonds remain strong.
Duty and Responsibility
Almost every member of the Jerome family dutifully fulfills their responsibilities. Jack Jerome holds down two jobs to support his family, even enduring a heart attack in the process. He ensures that bills are paid and that the family has food and clothing. Stanley Jerome also contributes financially, but his sense of responsibility goes beyond just providing money. He challenges his boss when he believes an employee has been unjustly treated in an accident, risking his own job in the process. This strong sense of obligation toward others highlights his character.
Though Stanley is only eighteen, he sometimes makes poor decisions. He carelessly loses an entire week's pay in a poker game just as his father is unable to work due to a heart attack. To avoid his family's anger over the lost wages and to earn more money, Stanley considers enlisting in the Army. However, his sense of responsibility wins out, and he realizes his family needs him to stay close.
The younger siblings also feel a sense of responsibility, though they occasionally use it to their advantage. When Nora has the chance to dance on Broadway, she tries to convince her mother by claiming she can financially support the family. Blanche, however, insists that Nora should complete high school, believing it will benefit her more in the long term. Although Nora disagrees with the decision, her...
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desire to help the family is sincere. Similarly, Eugene often has to run errands and perform household chores he dislikes. Yet, his commitment to his mother and family drives him to set the table and go to the store, even when the tasks seem minor or unreasonable. This shared sense of duty and responsibility helps keep the family united.
Innocence and Coming of Age
Brighton Beach Memoirs is a play about a fourteen-year-old boy growing up in Brooklyn, New York, during an era of comparative innocence, in the years just prior to the American involvement in World War II. Eugene wants to be a writer—or a baseball player, if he can play for “the Yankees, or the Cubs, or the Red Sox, or maybe possibly the Tigers.”
Neil Simon captures not only an era of innocence but also an age of innocence, as a young boy grows into manhood. The audience shares in those private moments that men go through as they reach puberty and pass on into manhood. Nora represents the glory of Eugene’s newfound interests. She symbolizes every man’s first love. “If I had my choice between a tryout with the Yankees and actually seeing her bare breasts for two and a half seconds, I would have some serious thinking to do.”
During the first act the audience listens in as Stanley and Eugene talk about such things as girls and masturbation. “There’s nothing wrong with it,” Stanley assures his brother. “Everybody does it. Especially at our age.” Later, in act 2, Stanley gives Eugene a postcard of a nude woman. In his memoirs Eugene writes, “October the second, six twenty-five p.m. A momentous moment in the life of I, Eugene Morris Jerome. I have seen the Golden Palace of the Himalayas . . . Puberty is over. Onward and upwards!” So ends the play.
Family and Conflict
In addition to the joy and wonder of passing through puberty, the play carries a more serious theme concerning the American family and what it takes to hold it together during periods of external and internal conflict. In the outside world there is near chaos, as nations move closer to the brink of a second world war.
Internally, the family is faced with the challenge of maintaining itself amid a series of financial crises and interpersonal struggles. As Eugene says in his memoirs:Pop must have been bleary-eyed because not only did he have to deal with Stanley’s principles, Nora’s career, the loss of his noisemaker business, how to get Aunt Blanche married off and Laurie’s fluttering heart, but at any minute there could be a knock on the door with thirty-seven relatives from Poland showing up looking for a place to live.
In all this confusion and uncertainty, Jack suffers a mild heart attack, a crisis that leaves Kate in control of the household. This play is also about the Jewish mother, a representation of an entire nation, who is the epitome of the suffering servant spoken of by the biblical prophet Isaiah.
Love and Human Connection
Ultimately, this play is about people and what it means to love and care for others. Onstage, the characters reveal a family trying to exist and overcome everyday problems. What the audience learns is that each and every person is inextricably bound to the next. For life to mean anything, people must find their meaning in the way that they interact with others.
