48 pages • 1 hour read
Paula VogelHow I Learned to Drive
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1997A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Scenes 15-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Scene 15 Summary: “You and the Reverse Gear”
In 1965, 13-year-old Li’l Bit goes into Peck and Aunt Mary’s basement for a photo shoot. Peck “is all competency and concentration” (40) as he prepares the camera and lighting. Li’l Bit asks where Aunt Mary is. Peck assures her his wife is out with Li’l Bit’s mother. He adds that he told Mary that Li’l Bit was helping him with his camera and that she won’t come down. Li’l Bit reminds Peck that they agreed there would be “[n]o frontal nudity” (40).
Peck turns music on and tells Li’l Bit he wants her to “[l]isten to it with your body, and just—respond” (40). As he unbuttons her blouse and arranges her on the stool, he tells her she should pretend she’s alone in her room and move to the music as she feels it. Li’l Bit is uncomfortable at first but eventually does as he says.
Peck tells her she’s “a very beautiful young woman” (41), making Li’l Bit blush. He adds that “[f]or a thirteen year old, you have a body a twenty-year-old woman would die for” (41). When Li’l Bit comments about the boys at school, Peck tells her boys mature more slowly than girls and that this is “a blessing for men” (42).
Peck tells her to arch her back and throw her head back. When he reveals that he intends to submit photos of her to Playboy once she turns 18, Li’l Bit grows upset, saying she wants to go to college. Peck says “[v]ery respectable women model for Playboy” (43). Li’l Bit is horrified that he’d let other men see the photos. Peck tells her “[t]here’s nothing wrong with what we’re doing” (43) and that she has “a wonderful body and an even more wonderful mind” (43). He says he “want[s] other people to appreciate it” (43) and that “[i]t’s not anything shameful” (43).
Li’l Bit says she thought this was just for him. He promises he won’t show the photos to anyone and that he will “treasure […] that you’re doing this only for me” (43). Li’l Bit refuses to look at him; Peck convinces her to look at him by telling her he’s loved her “every day since the day you were born” (43). Li’l Bit says she knows and, after a few moments of hesitation, unbuttons her blouse.
Scene 16 Summary: “Idling in the Neutral Gear”
Female Greek Chorus, as Aunt Mary, tells the audience that Peck is a good man who does the dishes, takes out the trash, and helps neighbors shovel their snow or fix things in their houses. She says her sister must be jealous of the gifts Peck gives her.
She says Peck “has troubles” but that they “don’t talk about them” (44). She believes he never recovered emotionally from World War II and that “[m]en in his generation were expected to be quiet about it and get on with their lives” (44). When he has “a bad spell” (44), Peck seeks out her company, and she talks about mundane, lighthearted topics because “domesticity can be a balm for men when they’re lost” (45). She says she is aware of Peck’s relationship with Li’l Bit and that Peck “fights against it” (45). She believes he needs to see her “on the shore, believing in him” (45).
Mary then says Li’l Bit is “a sly one” (45) who “knows exactly what she’s doing” (45), that “she’s twisted Peck around her little finger” (45) and that she’s just one more person “borrowing my husband until it doesn’t suit her anymore” (45). Mary is looking forward to Li’l Bit’s going to college when she “manipulates someone else” (45). At that time, Peck will once again “sit in the kitchen while I bake, or beside me on the sofa when I sew in the evenings” (45).
Scene 17 Summary: “You and the Reverse Gear”
It’s Christmas of 1964, and Li’l Bit is 13. She walks in on Peck doing the dishes. He is abrupt and cold with her and tells her he’d rather wash dishes than talk with the family. She says he’s the only man he knows who does dishes; he responds that the women have been working all day and that “men should be nice to women” (46).
Li’l Bit asks if her grandfather upset him, and he says he didn’t. She tells him she missed him on Thanksgiving. When he says he “didn’t want to spoil anyone’s Thanksgiving” (46), she asks him not to drink for the rest of the night. Li’l Bit asks why he drinks so much, and he tells her he has a fire in his heart that is eased by alcohol.
Li’l Bit tells him that they could meet once a week to talk as long as he doesn’t drink. To avoid arousing suspicion, she would keep it a secret and tell her mother she’s going to a friend’s house. She says they must always meet in public and that he has to let her “draw the line” (47).
Scenes 15-17 Analysis
As he has throughout the play, Peck attempts to mollify Li’l Bit’s fears by insisting his intentions are benign. During the photo shoot in his basement, when Li’l Bit expresses horror that he would let other men see the photos, Peck, though “he knows he’s made a mistake” (42), assures her “[i]t’s not anything shameful” (43). By feigning innocence and insisting she has agency to deny his requests, he manipulates Li’l Bit by forcing her to question what she sees. Peck’s insistence on defining the narrative is one more way he claims control.
Vogel seems to suggest that, subverted by a system that makes them question their judgment, women are compelled to place men’s happiness above their own. Li’l Bit poses for Peck’s photographs despite her obvious discomfort; though horrified that Peck had intended to send the photos to Playboy, she continues the photo shoot when he reminds her, “I have loved you every day since the day you were born” (43). Aunt Mary admits she “know[s] what’s going on” (45) between Peck and Li’l Bit and that Peck has neglected her. Despite these humiliations, Aunt Mary is committed to allowing him “to see me on the shore, believing in him” (45).
Women, the play suggests, are subject to an impossible double standard in which they are simultaneously expected to cater to men’s pleasures and blamed for men’s desires. Despite her acknowledgement that Peck “has troubles” (44), Aunt Mary blames Li’l Bit for the tension in her marriage, saying Li’l Bit “knows exactly what she’s doing” (45). Just as Greg should be excused for fixating on Li’l Bit’s breasts at the dance, Peck is forgiven for succumbing to what Mary sees as Li’l Bit’s manipulation. That women perpetuate this power structure demonstrates how deeply ingrained this double standard is.
Li’l Bit’s behavior on her thirteenth Christmas shows her complex feelings for Peck and, in doing so, illuminates a major theme of the play: forgiveness. Aware of Peck’s drinking problem, and sympathizing with him for having been scolded by Grandfather, Li’l Bit suggests she and Peck meet once a week so he can talk about his problems. Her hiding these meetings from her mother indicates that she is aware of the inappropriateness of their meeting; her insistence that he let her “draw the line” (47) indicates she is aware of the immorality of his behavior. That she “bestows a very warm smile on him” (47) before leaving the room, however, shows the complexity of her feelings for a man whom she knows is damaging her, but whom she cares for anyway.
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By Paula Vogel
