In the Blood by Suzan-Lori Parker

 

In the Blood is a play by Suzan-Lori Parker that focuses on the life of Hester, a woman who lives in poverty and has to struggle every day in order to make ends meet. This is a woman who has five children that have different fathers who she believes have to be supported well in order to have better lives. It is also important for Hester that she advances the lives of her children so that they can have the opportunities that she did not have. She seeks to make sure that she gets the help of her children’s fathers, but this ends up not being possible and she is disappointed. This play shows the manner through which Hester is led by her frustration as well as illiteracy and sense of shame into killing her oldest son.

One of the most fundamental subjects that are discussed in the play is Hester’s illiteracy. While she is an individual that cannot read, she is determined to make sure that her children achieve a level of literacy. However, it is essential to understand that for Hester, her illiteracy must have been an extremely frustrating factor because she was not able to achieve the qualifications that would have made her life better. In addition, she seems to be a highly empathetic individual that seeks to ensure that those around her receive happiness, and forget their troubles. This is the case with the manner through which she ends up giving herself to men in order to console them when having a bad time in their lives.

However, her lack of literacy can be considered a reason behind her eventual murder of her son. When someone scrawls the word ‘slut’ close to where Hester and her family live under a bridge, she is not in a position to read it. Her son, Jabber, who is more literate than his mother, makes the decision not to tell his mother what it means. When Hester learns the truth about the scrawl, she must feel all her frustrations build up until she cannot take it anymore. Her bludgeoning Jabber to death is a means of taking her frustrations out on him to such an extent that she does not think rationally. She is instead governed by her baser emotions which make it extremely difficult for her to realize the consequences of her actions until it is too late.

In conclusion, Hester is an individual that is governed by her emotions to such an extent that she ends up taking an action that she regrets. Her life is essentially a tragedy because it is one that she has to struggle every day in order to make it work. She is involved in acts that are considered loose by other members of her society and this it to such an extent that she is looked upon as a person at the sidelines of the community in which she lives. Therefore, her killing of her son, despite its being deplorable, can be considered a means through which she fights back against the humiliation she feels for being called a slut.