The gun that Fefu keeps in her house symbolizes the repressed resentment and animosity that she feels toward Phillip and—on a broader level—toward the sexist society in which she lives. At the beginning of the play, she shoots the gun at Phillip as he approaches the house, lightheartedly explaining to her friends that this is a “game” they play: whenever she sees him coming, she fires a blank at him and he pretends to die. Although she calls this a game, she later confirms the symbolic nature of this strange ritual, admitting that she might feel the need to legitimately shoot Phillip if she didn’t pretend to shoot him—a sign that the ritual truly is a way of acting out the violent tension that plagues their relationship. And yet, the play also subtly implies that this kind of indirect violence can still have dire consequences. Failing to confront certain issues (like, say, a husband’s sexist condescension toward his wife) can end up hurting other people, the play suggests, since Fefu later unintentionally kills Julia with the same gun with which she normally pretends to shoot Phillip. In fact, she doesn’t even point the gun at Julia, but Julia still dies. The strange, indirect nature of this accident suggests that bottled-up resentment often manifests itself in unpredictable and destructive ways, as the gun itself comes to represent not just Fefu’s anger at her husband but also the ways in which this anger poisons the rest of her life.
The Gun Quotes in Fefu and Her Friends
FEFU: That’s all right. I scare myself too, sometimes. But there’s nothing wrong with being scared . . . it makes you stronger.—It does me.—He won’t put real bullets in the guns.—It suits our relationship . . . the game, I mean. If I didn’t shoot him with blanks, I might shoot him for real. Do you see the sense of it?
CINDY: He shot. Julia and the deer fell. The deer was dead . . . dying. Julia was unconscious. She had convulsions . . . like the deer. He died and she didn’t. I screamed for help and the hunter came and examined Julia. He said, “She is not hurt.” Julia’s forehead was bleeding. He said, “It is a surface wound. I didn’t hurt her.” I know it wasn’t he who hurt her. It was someone else. He went for help and Julia started talking. She was delirious.—Apparently there was a spinal nerve injury. She hit her head and she suffered a concussion. She blanks out and that is caused by the blow on the head. It’s a scar in the brain. It’s called the petit mal.
([…] Julia goes to the gun, takes it and smells the mouth of the barrel. She looks at Cindy.)
CINDY: It’s a blank.
(Julia takes the remaining slug out of the gun. She lets it fall on the floor.)
JULIA: She’s hurting herself. (Julia looks blank and is motionless. Cindy picks up the slug. She notices Julia’s condition.)
CINDY: Julia. (To Christina.) She’s absent.
CHRISTINA: What do we do?
CINDY: Nothing, she’ll be all right in a moment. (She takes the gun from Julia. Julia comes to.)
JULIA: It’s a blank . . .
CINDY: It is.
JULIA: She’s hurting herself. (Julia lets out a strange whimper. She goes to the coffee table, takes a piece of chocolate, puts it in her mouth and goes toward her room. After she crosses the threshold, she stops.) I must lie down.
The Gun Symbol Timeline in Fefu and Her Friends
