Character Of Catherine In David Auburn's Proof

Everyone must have, at some point, met someone whose capabilities they under- or overestimated. In “Proof”, David Auburn presents a main character, Catherine, whose basic abilities to take care of herself is sometimes questioned by the reader. Other characters in the story also challenge her decision to live by herself, but she and another main character maintain that she is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Although Catherine exhibits some disturbing behaviors, she should not be considered to be completely incapable. Signs that she has great abilities include that she can take care of others beside herself, that she is mathematically achieved, and that she is a spiritually strong person.

Catherine shows that she can take care of herself mainly in that she has been taking care of others. For over four years, she has been taking care of her father. Although many people take care of their parents, Catherine was not faced with a simple task of merely doing chores and managing the house. Her father, Robert, has hypergraphia. Symptoms include a compulsion to write incessantly and sometimes belief in nonexistent
things. For example, about three and a half years before the present of the play, Robert refuses to answer Catherine’s calls, leading her to skip class and come home to investigate. As Catherine enters the scene, Robert is sitting on the porch, in thirty degree weather, and wearing only a t-shirt. The compulsion to write carries over in speech, and Robert has many long monologues that are mainly nonsense. For example, when Hal, the other main character, comes to turn in his thesis draft, Robert embarks on a long rant in the middle of a normal conversation: “I was in a bookstore yesterday. Completely full, students buying books… browsing… Students do a hell lot of browsing, don’t they? Just Browsing. [...] Yeah, I like it. I like watching the students. Wondering what they’re gonna buy, what they’re gonna read.” (56) For Catherine to take care of her father, she not only had to take care of his physical needs, but watch out for his mental activities as well. Without the closest attention, he could have easily hurt himself. Thus, Catherine exhibits great abilities in care taking in that she was able to care for a mentally ill parent.

Beyond the basic task of taking care of herself and others, Catherine is also very mathematically accomplished.
Her father, Robert, is the only one that recognizes her talent. He say in their imagined conversation, “Even your depression is mathematical. Stop moping and get to work. The kind of potential you have–” While caring for her father, Catherine also completed an important proof, which Hal, another mathematician, can barely begin to understand. In fact, it is so advanced that at first Hal doesn’t believe that Catherine had written it. Hal says, “I know how hard it would be to come up with something like this. I mean it’s impossible. You’d have to be… you’d have to be your dad, basically. Your dad at the peak of his powers.” Anyone who is able to construct a proof that advanced must have more than the mental capacity to take care of
herself.

Finally, Catherine shows herself to be a very rational and spiritually strong person. Taking care of her father did not involve simply hastily cooking and taking care of his basic needs. In order to stay with him full time, Catherine had to quit school in Sophomore year, a decision many others would not have made. In doing this, she must have endured much hardship in knowing that her education might be forever terminated. It is known that she is upset of the fact because she says, “After I dropped out of school, I had nothing to do. I was depressed, really depressed.” Despite the fact that she was very depressed about the decision, she went on to fully take care of her father until his cardiovascular failure. This shows that she is not a fragile person whose mentality is easily broken by burdens, and thus that it has not been broken. Such a strong mentality is surely able to take care of its own body and mind.

In reading of “Proof”, the reader is challenged by the possibility that Catherine might not be mentally stable and cannot take care of herself. For example, she has an utterly imagined conversation with her deceased father, doesn’t get out of bed for more than thirty-three days, and assaults policemen who are trying to assist her. However, Catherine also shows many signs that she is in fact normal. The reader can be convinced of the fact by that she took care of her mentally unstable father for more than four years, that she is mathematically achieved, and that she has shown to have a strong will. It might be learned from the story that one doesn’t always know best, and that one should not “judge a book by its cover” and intervene forcibly but rather let that person be of his own will.