Who Is Jessie's Last Conversation With Mama In Night Mother

Jessie’s Last Conversation with Mama ‘Night Mother, a play by Marsha Norman, focuses on the last conversation between Mama and her daughter Jessie, before Jessie commits suicide. Jessie is in her late thirties or early forties; she is no angsty teenager trying to evoke anger from her mother. One could argue that this last conversation between Jessie and her mother centers around Jessie trying to ready her mother for her death, or trying to understand Mama’s choices over Jessie’s lifetime. Rather, Jessie chooses to tell her mother of her suicide plan to hurt her, and their conversation is about the mistakes Mama has made in regards to Jessie. Mama doesn’t need Jessie. When Mama tells Jessie that she does so much, and that she doesn’t have

“And I can’t do anything either, about my life, to change it, make it better, make me feel better about it. Like it better, make it work” (26). She actually could change her life, but she has no desire to do that. She has no job, and she does not want one. She doesn’t have friends to visit, and she doesn’t even go outside to exercise. There are no mentions of her having any hobbies in ‘Night Mother. She lives with her mother because her ex-husband Cecil left. Jessie has a son, but she does not approve of his lifestyle, so she doesn’t keep in touch with him. She can’t stand her brother and sister-in-law. In short, Jessie doesn’t like anything or anyone, including

This bitterness is clear when Jessie says, “You mean to tell me I had fits all the time as a kid and you just told me I fell down or something and it wasn’t til I had the fit when Cecil was looking that anybody bothered to find out what was the matter with me?” (46). Mama tries to explain that she wanted Jessie to have a normal childhood, and that she also didn’t want Jessie’s father to know, because he also had seizures. Jessie can’t understand her mother’s reasoning, and she doesn’t want to understand. She just wants to bring up her hurt over the past decades before she chooses to end her