Imaginary Friends (Themes)

Themes

Ambition

Both women were extremely ambitious, which Ephron suggests was a necessary trait in the middle part of the twentieth century, when not many female authors were celebrated, let alone recognized. Both did become successful authors, but as Hellman acknowledges, they "might never have become real writers if it weren't for these two older men who came into [their] lives at almost the same moment." Hellman suggests that this was the motive for McCarthy's agreeing to marry Edmund Wilson, when she seemed to be in love with Philip Rahv.

Hellman and McCarthy understood the power of the media and used it to keep themselves in the public eye. Both women made names for themselves with their publication of shocking stories: Hellman's The Children's Hour and McCarthy's "The Man in the Brooks Brothers Suit." They also admit that they played up their fight for the infamy it would afford them.

In a rare moment of truth, they each confess to wanting one thing the other had, Hellman wants McCarthy's beauty and McCarthy wants Hellman's wealth. This desire was one of the impetuses for their fierce competition.

Competition

At one point McCarthy insists, "it's just too easy to say that the reason women fight with each other is because they're jealous," but jealousy was one of the factors in their ongoing battle. A more important factor, though, was their ambition. There was not a lot of room for female authors during this period, and each wanted to be considered the best.

The two women compete in every scene, over artistic success, men, and public attention. Hellman starts the battle, as McCarthy notes that she was teaching at Sarah Lawrence when Hellman came to speak by pointing out that she never "had" to teach. Hellman remembers the students never taking their eyes off of her as she told such wonderful stories. After she insists that McCarthy came to her lecture to pick a fight, she ratchets up the competition when she inquires whether it was because she slept with Rahv or if it was that McCarthy was jealous of her.

McCarthy retaliates in response to Hellman's complaint that McCarthy was always writing "mean things" about her, by admitting "I didn't write much about you." Hellman later is on the attack when she remembers watching McCarthy's interview with Cavett and declares "I was completely happy at seeing how badly you'd aged." When the two women discuss their political positions during the forties and fifties, Hellman insists that McCarthy is jealous because she and other communist sympathizers became heroes during the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in 1952.

Their fiercest jabs are thrown when they discuss each other's work. Hellman notes that McCarthy's best-seller The Group was "viciously reviewed" by some of her "closest friends." McCarthy counters with her declaration that Hellman was "washed up as a playwright" and so turned to memoirs. Hellman returns by declaring that no one reads McCarthy's essays on war. At one point, they grudgingly admit that they liked each other's work, but McCarthy immediately qualifies her statement that Hellman's plays "were so well made" by claiming, "too well made, really — there was way too much of the gun over the mantel in the first act being fired at the end of the play."

Ultimately, though, they acknowledge the theatrical nature of their competition. When they identify themselves as enemies, and Hellman quotes Goethe — "you must choose your enemies well," she suggests their competition has benefited both of them.