How I Learned to Drive

Married to Li’l Bit’s Aunt Mary, Uncle Peck spends time with Li’l Bit frequently as part of her extended family and also, as Li’l Bit grows into adolescence, in private, weekly rendezvous and driving lessons. Peck is described in the list of characters as an “[a]ttractive man in his forties” (5). His wife, Aunt Mary, praises him for being “a good man” (44) who washes the dishes, does yard work, and eagerly helps their neighbors jumpstart their cars or shovel snow off their sidewalks. When teaching Li’l Bit how to drive, Peck is “all competency and concentration” (40).  

Throughout the play, Peck treats Li’l Bit as a romantic partner, fondling her breasts, taking her on dates, taking sensual photos of her in his basement, and counting down the days until she will return from college. He frequently references her eighteenth birthday, after which physical intimacy with her will be legal. Peck’s driving lessons are a metaphor for his teaching her about sex and, more generally, the power structure that subverts women and prioritizes men’s needs and desires.  

In an early scene in which Mother describes the family’s excitement when Li’l Bit was born, Peck is the one who notes that between Li’l Bit’s legs was “just a little bit” (12). He adds that he held Li’l Bit “right in this hand” (13), a statement that suggests his control over her. Peck often reminds Li’l Bit that he’s loved her since she was born. He tends to do so when he is seducing her or asking her to do something for him, seeming to simultaneously suggest he’s owed her attention and easing her fears that he will hurt her. Peck also gaslights Li’l Bit by professing his motives are innocent and that she, in fact, is the one imbuing his behavior with sexual meaning. He frequently tells her nothing sexual will happen until she’s ready, even as he continues to molest and seduce her. 

Throughout the play, Peck and Li’l Bit frequently reference Peck’s drinking problem. Toward the end of the play, in a flashback in which she remembers at age 13 witnessing an argument between Peck and Grandfather, Li’l Bit suggests she and Peck could meet once a week so he could talk, as long as he promises not to drink. Indeed, Peck does not drink around her, even when she becomes intoxicated at the Eastern Shore restaurant, until their final meeting, when she invites him to join her in a glass of champagne. After she rejects his proposal and says she never wants to see him again, Peck returns to drinking and drinks himself to death seven years later. 

Aunt Mary claims to be aware of his relationship with Li’l Bit and blames his indiscretions on post-traumatic stress disorder—Peck is a veteran of World War II, a time in his life he prefers not to talk about—as well as on what she sees as Li’l Bit’s slyness and manipulation. Peck also alludes to his own dysfunctional family, saying he does not return home often to South Carolina, for he’s a disappointment to his mother. Li’l Bit’s own mother finds him to be “a small town hick who’s learned how to mix drinks from Hugh Hefner” (55). Just as Li’l Bit retreats to Peck for comfort, Peck seems to find comfort in Li’l Bit’s presence, telling her, “I’ve really come to depend on you, Li’l Bit” (51). 

Li’l Bit often goes to Peck for comfort when the dysfunction of the family overwhelms her; in fact, after a family dinner, during which Grandfather infuriates Li’l Bit by teasing her about the size of her breasts, Aunt Mary asks Peck to make Li’l Bit feel better, for he’s “the only one she’ll listen to when she gets like this” (15). Mother expresses concern over his relationship with Li’l Bit when Li’l Bit, at age 11, wants to take a road trip with him. It’s during this road trip that Peck molests Li’l Bit for the first time; after that incident, Li’l Bit “retreated above the neck” (57), living “inside the ‘fire’ in [her] head ever since” (57). It is suggested Peck also abuses his nephew, Bobby, whom he teaches how to fish and to whom he promises to keep secret the fact that he cried when the fish was caught. Peck arguably draws children in partly because of his ability to keep secrets. He also allows Li’l Bit to order a cocktail when she is underage. 

Despite being uncomfortable with his seductions—she allows him to touch her breasts with hesitation, and she is nervous modeling for his photo shoot—Li’l Bit is ambivalent about Peck’s attention, sometimes brazenly flirting with him and physically responding to his touch. In the hotel room where he proposes, Li’l Bit has to force herself to step away from him, reciting along with his with Aunt Mary a list of his charms, such as “[t]he steel of the military in his walk” (53); his “[l]arge hands, rough hands” (53); “[t]he whisper of the zipper” (53); and “[h]is mouth” (53). Her feelings for him are further complicated by the fact that part of her attraction to him is based in his role as a father figure, or “[a] man who will look out for [her]” (55). After she rejects his proposal and leaves him forever, Li’l Bit says that as an adult, she wishes she could ask him who molested him and how old he was, and whether Peck was also 11 when it happened. Years later, she understands that he wandered, lost, like “a kind of Flying Dutchman” (55), and she is able to forgive him.  

Peck’s exploitation of his role as Li’l Bit’s father figure and his persistent manipulation make Li’l Bit, in her narrator role, acknowledge to the audience that she “was sixteen or so before [she] realized that pedophilia did not mean people who loved to bicycle” (13). That he is attractive and clean cut seems to suggest that women face danger in many forms. Peck’s sense of entitlement to Li’l Bit’s attention and body is a reminder of women’s subversion in society at-large. Ironically, the driving lessons he teaches her—how to drive defensively, how to check for danger, how to be confident at the wheel—provide her with the tools she needs to leave him. Li’l Bit’s forgiving him reminds us of his complexity and how the damage we suffer in our lives has long-lasting effects. 

Mother and Grandmother frequently engage in raucous conversations about marriage and sex. In a scene depicting a typical family dinner, Mother makes Li’l Bit uncomfortable by drawing attention to the size of Li’l Bit’s breasts; when Li’l Bit leaves the table, Mother says Li’l Bit is at a sensitive age. Later, Mother states that “[m]en only want one thing” (25) and that “once they have it, they lose all interest” (25). When Li’l Bit is out to dinner with Peck, to celebrate earning her driver’s license, Mother, off to the side, relates her rules for dating, most of which entail how to monitor one’s drinking, how to throw up in the bathroom if one has consumed too much alcohol, and how to ensure that if one is going to be sexually assaulted, one can at least make it difficult for one’s date. On her way off stage, she brags about having outdrank “an entire regiment of British officers” (21). 

Mother breaks with Grandmother over what to tell Li’l Bit about sex: while Grandmother wants to scare Li’l Bit with exaggerated tales of pain during sex, Mother tells Li’l Bit there may be some pain but that “it feels wonderful after the pain subsides” (30) and that it won’t hurt “if the man you go to bed with really loves you” (30). When Grandmother objects, Mother says she doesn’t want Li’l Bit to learn about sex “[i]n the street” (29) and that she “believe[s] in telling [her] daughter the truth” (30). 

Not much is revealed about Li’l Bit’s father, who does not appear in the play. However, Mother tells Grandmother that if she had been as honest with her about sex as she herself is being with Li’l Bit, she “wouldn’t have had to marry” him (30).  

Li’l Bit, at age 11, argues with her mother over whether she can go on a road trip with Peck. Mother insists she doesn’t like the way Peck looks at her and that she thinks he pays her too much attention. When Li’l Bit accuses her of “think[ing] every man is evil” (55) because she went “through a bad time with my father” (55), Mother clarifies that she doesn’t think men are evil but that they “haven’t been very lucky with the men in our family” (55). She ultimately lets Li’l Bit go with Peck but warns her that “if anything happens, I hold you responsible” (56). 

Though Mother tries to protect her daughter, it is suggested that her own behavior has confused Li’l Bit and that the dysfunction of the family has helped make Peck’s abuse of Li’l Bit possible.  

Our first image of Grandmother is when, at the dinner table, she explains the difficulty of finding an adequate bra during the Depression and attempting to remove her blouse to show them the indentations in her shoulders. She describes her husband as “[a] big bull” (25) who demands sex “[e]very morning, every evening” (25). She insists an orgasm is something Mother and Aunt Mary “made up” (26). Mother reveals that Grandmother was “a child bride” (26) who “still believed in Santa Claus” (26) when she married. Grandmother confirms that she was only 14 when she wed. Grandmother argues with Mother over what to tell Li’l Bit about sex, preferring to scare Li’l Bit, who is “too young” (29) to be thinking of sex. When Mother offers more detailed answers, Grandmother states she should just “go out and rent a motel room for her” (30). Grandmother’s desire to scare Li’l Bit about sex is the result of Mother’s becoming pregnant at a young age; she exclaims that if Li’l Bit “stops and thinks before she takes her knickers off, maybe someone in this family will finish high school” (30). When Mother accuses her of not having taught her about sex, Grandmother says she holds Mother responsible. Though Grandmother expresses the desire for her granddaughter to fare better than she did, she is staunch and old-fashioned in her views about sex and marriage, suggesting sexual pleasure for women is an anomaly and that women should accept that men are sexual, boorish, animalistic beings. The fact that she and Mother become “aroused” (27) as they discuss these views demonstrates how deeply ingrained misogyny is in society.