Death with Dignity
The play makes an emotional appeal in favor of suicide when the rainbow is not even close to appearing, much less being enough to keep you going. Jessie’s life is one of quiet desperation that gets more and more desperate amid less quiet every day. Her mother is overbearing in the worst possible way: she knows she’s always in the right because she can’t possibly conceive of ever being in the wrong. Jessie’s way out is hardly dignified, but a case can be made it is more dignified than the alternative -- an alternative which could, conceivably, lead to murder before suicide.
The Consequences of Alienation
Jessie is not just lonely, though she is plenty lonely. People can be lonely without also being alienated. The loneliness is not the cause of Jessie’s suicidal tendencies: she has her mother and if she had been willing to give up smoking, she could have still have her husband. The loneliness is stimulated by her alienation from others. She makes a conscious choice to be alone from her husband and, ultimately, it is clear she has made a conscious choice to alienate herself from her mother. The consequence of that choice is her belief that there is only one way out of being alone for the rest of her life.
Identity Dysporia
Jessie has never really had an opportunity to define her identity on her own. She has always either been Thelma’s daughter, Dawson’s sister, Cecil’s wife or Ricky’s mom. By not establishing a strong identity of her own, Jessie has made unwise choices in the effort to create some semblance of self. She made the selfish choice to choose smoking over staying with her husband and by the end of the play an argument can be made that she makes the single most selfish act possible: suicide gains her nothing and costs loved ones more than she can ever know. This lack of identity results in a dysphoria which steadily increases her entire dissatisfaction with life.
Free Will
The choice for Jessie to kill herself is about exerting power and using her free will since she feels like she has never had any control over her life. She believes she has always been trapped by her epilepsy and her overbearing mother. The one other time she tried to control her life is when she made the decision to keep smoking causing her husband to leave her. It was a choice that troubled her and left her even more lonely causing her to crave control. Now, Jessie believes there is no other way to have control over her life than to end it.
