Finding Beauty

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Broken people dealing with broken relationships.
 
Do they still have worth? 
 
Sally and Matt battle this question as they find themselves reconnecting in the Missouri countryside. Sally neglects to see the beauty in her homeland when she bitterly remarks, “The weather is too dry in the summer, the crops just curl up in the field. The spring is nothing but a cycle of floods. The winters are too cold, and damp and—” 
 
—Matt cuts her off with a simple and profound response: “But it’s beautiful.”
 
Like the landscape that surrounds them, both Matt and Sally have had difficulty adapting to life's hardships. They both struggle to see the beauty in themselves.
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But when their imperfections come together, they create a beautiful landscape of personal healing and happiness. 

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Walls

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Sally resists a relationship with Matt, who rebukes her with: “You like to hide from me so much."

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Sally and Matt are two lonely people who built emotional walls to protect themselves from potentially damaging relationships. 

 

Sally is surrounded by her family, yet she lacks a meaningful connection to them. Matt has been bitterly torn from his loved ones during WWI, and he isolates himself, using a facade of humor to protect his heart. 

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Matt is more optimistic about his future and seeks to overcome his loneliness by visiting Sally at the hospital. She won’t see him, but she also won’t send him away.

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Undeterred by the cold shoulder, Matt waits for Sally in the boathouse. She meets Matt in her prettiest dress, which hints that the walls she put up just might break down.

 

Could this evening give them the courage to save their relationship?

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Individualism

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“You know I can’t stand livin’ there as it is. . . . I’m as eager to leave as they are eager to get rid of me.” 

 

The Talley family, excluding Sally, values conventionality. They uphold many traditional societal values, including the suppressed role of women. In this time period, women were expected to live quietly: get married, have children, and live as a silent support for their husbands. 

 

Sally directly contradicts the norms and expectations of her family. She is unmarried, works as a nurse, and keeps company with a foreign Jew. She even smokes.

 

In 1944, these were progressive behaviors for a lady, and Sally, herself, finds it difficult to accept the unconventional role she plays.

 

But instead of condemning her radical attitudes like the Talley family, this play idealizes them, hinting at the progressive, 1980’s view of the author. 

 

Matt says, “[Sally’s] questioning eyes are hard to come by nowadays.”

 

As Sally overcomes her family’s old-fashioned ideals, she also becomes her own person. This is a triumph, indeed.

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Overcoming Intolerance

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“I have no accent. I have worked very hard and have completely lost any trace of an accent.”

 

Ironically, Matt says this with a German-Jewish pronunciation, and to most of Sally’s family, the trace of foreignism in his voice is reason enough to dislike him.

 

Intolerance persists throughout the play, though it shows most in the way the Talleys treat Matt. Sally’s family hasn’t spent a lot of time with him, but they don’t like him because of their assumptions about his ancestry and religion. As soon as they see him, they greet him with unkind words, rude gestures, and even chase him out with a shotgun. They hardly know him, yet they have labeled him as a “communist traitor infidel.”  

 

As Sally comes to see the real Matt, the play makes readers re-evaluate his treatment and look past labels to the man he truly is. In this way, the play illustrates that relationships can transcend prejudice if we allow them to.

 

 

Symbolism of the Boathouse

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Though beautiful, the Boathouse is a folly; it's a building made for decoration and not practicality. 

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Sally says, “[Uncle Whistler] did exactly what he wanted to do. He was the healthiest member of the family.” The boathouse may not build social prestige and connections, but that isn’t its purpose.

​To a family focused on upholding traditions and making money, the boathouse is a waste of space. But Sally’s uncle built it for his own catharsis, despite his family's opposition. It became an outlet that helped him feel happy and fulfilled. 

 

Like Uncle Whistler, Sally and Matt have voices telling them that they shouldn’t be together. But, if they listen to the whispering of the boathouse, they can learn to listen to their hearts instead of the people around them.

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