Essay Questions

Why does Bananas refuse to get treatment for her mental issues?

While the practices of shock therapy and insulin shock therapy were not as used in the type when the play was written, people who suffered from various mental illnesses were still treated in ways which nowadays we would call inhuman are cruel. In some mental hospitals and asylums, the doctors continued to administer drugs which would make the patients have violent seizures, to use hydrotherapy or rather the practice of dousing patients in really cold water and even lobotomies which would affect the brains of the patients permanently to the point where they were no longer able to take care of themselves. Another way through which patients were treated were through the use of drugs, namely opium and morphine, making the patients dependent and often pushing them to the point of overdosing. It is no wonder why many people refused to be treated in mental hospitals, the mortality rate being extremely high for those who were in the end treated in such a manner. Considering this, Bananas’ reluctance to be confined to such a hospital can be understandable.

What may the unpacked boxes be used to symbolize in the play?

Throughout the play, the narrator describes the apartment where Artie lives together with his wife as a crowded space, filled with boxes which Artie still has to unpack after moving into the apartment a few years prior. The characters show no interest towards the boxes, choosing to ignore them completely, almost as if they were never there. The boxes show Artie’s reluctance to accept the situation in his life, seeing as unpacking would have meant Artie accepted he was not going to leave the little apartment he was living in too soon. The fact that everyone also refuses to acknowledge the presence of the boxes may also suggest how everyone grew accustomed to the idea of nothing changing and thus saw no point in trying to change the way their lives were.

What does the narrator may want to suggest by describing the bomb as being fashioned as a present?

Whenever Ronnie appears on stage holding the bomb, the narrator describes it as being camouflaged as a present so no one would know what it really was. The bomb is used here to represent an imminent death something which sooner or later will be unavoidable some of the characters in the play. Yet, by describing the bomb as being a "present’’ the narrator may want to suggest the idea that for some characters in the play, death would be a mercy, allowing them to escape form a tragic existence.