Brighton Beach Memoirs is a play about a family who comes together due to an unfortunate death and co-exist under one roof while facing financial troubles. I will be discussing the character Nora and the way that she develops herself and reacts towards the other characters.
Nora is a sixteen year old girl living in Brighton Beach, New York in the late 1930’s. She is Jewish and lives with her mother, Blanche and younger sister, Laurie, in her Uncle’s house due to the Death of her father Dave. We first meet Nora when she comes bounding into the house after she has been offered a dancing role in an upcoming Broadway performance. She’s decided she wants to drop out of school to pursue her dream. From this we learn that Nora is a determined young girl who wants to make a name for herself and possibly escape the confines and restrictions of Brighton Beach and her family.
Nora’s relationship with Blanche, her mother, is one where she feels she can walk all over her which we see when despite Blanche’ s unwillingness Nora refuses to take no for an answer concerning her involvement in the Broadway musical. This does not, however, show that Nora has complete disrespect for Blanche as she speaks to Laurie about a plan to help their mother by saving enough money to buy them their own house. During a confrontation she also expresses that she feels badly for wanting to do the musical because of Blanche’s feelings. Nearer to the end of the play during an emotional confrontation we learn that Nora feels neglected by her mother and feels that all of her attention goes to Laurie.
Nora and Laurie have a typical sister, sister relationship. They can be harmlessly rude to each other which Laurie proves by the insults she throws about Nora’s singing when Nora breaks the news about the Audition. Nora is also annoyed about having no privacy because she shares a room with her little sister. On the other hand Nora and Laurie can be very
Bibliography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislavski 's_system This page was last modified on 23 January 2013 at 07:37