LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Play It As It Lays, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Meaninglessness
Gender Inequality and Identity
Loss and Recovery
Superficiality
Summary
Analysis
Maria’s pain and bleeding begin a few weeks later. The doctor on Wilshire Street assures her that whoever did the operation did a good job. He gives her some Edrisal, though it does nothing to alleviate the pain, Maria keeps gin bottle beside her bed that night and wishes she could talk to her mother.
The trauma of the abortion causes Maria’s unresolved grief for her mother to resurface. Maria masks her pain with pills and alcohol.