Driving in Today’s World: Putting Woman Behind the Wheel and in Control in Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive

Abstract

Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive is a coming-of-age story told episodically and out of chronological order.  The playwriting, plot structure, setting, and character names, illuminate Vogel’s feminist perspective in narrative and structure.  The characters of Vogel’s play are defined and, in fact, named by their genitalia—Big Papa, Uncle Peck, and of course, Lil’ Bit.  Feminism denies this sexual hegemony; however, through focusing on the life of Lil’ Bit, Vogel simultaneously embraces the tenets on which feminism was built, while pushing back against some of those very same principles.   Through the work of Hélène Cixous, I intend to demonstrate the feminist tendencies of Vogel’s writing, and consequently her play.  In How I Learned to Drive, with the help of Cixous, I will reveal how Vogel revalues the female experience, challenges the representation of women as “other”, examines the power relations in performance and life, and raises the question of male/female differences by exploring biology and social construction.  Additionally, I will explore the feminist and gender theories of Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva, Simone de Beauvoir, and Judith Butler.  In so doing I hope to uncover that Lil’ Bit is not a woman entirely oppressed, but rather a woman with the power in her relationships.