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Chapter 47
Themes
Key
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
That spring, Maria occasionally finds gay men to invite her to parties. At first, these men appreciate her for her willingness to listen to them dramatically recount their suicidal ideations, and particularly because her days as a model have made her well-versed in the fashion sense that interests them. For example, she can distinguish between “the right bracelet” and its knockoffs. In the end, though, Maria’s “performance” is unconvincing, and the men patronizingly tell her to just drink some more. Maria is drinking a lot these days, since it stops her from dreaming.
Maria’s depiction of the men who take her to parties draws on certain stereotypes about gay men: for example, she considers them to be overly dramatic and obsessed with fashion. Maria’s eagerness to be accepted by these men suggests that she is trying to navigate her disillusionment with Hollywood the way BZ (who is also gay) does: she feigns amusement, goes to parties, and plays the game. However, Maria’s “performance” doesn’t conceal her disillusionment as effectively as BZ’s conceals his, and the men reject her. Maria continues to self-medicate with alcohol to suppress her grief and dull the pain of further social alienation.
Themes
Maria recalls a recurrent dream she’s had lately, in which a loudspeaker orders a string of children into a gas chamber. It’s Maria’s job to whisper reassuring words into the children’s ears, “because this was a humane operation.”
Themes
