The Square Root of Wonderful (Themes)

Themes

Choice

Mollie is faced with a choice: return to the life she knows with Phillip, a life sure to include physical violence, alcoholism, and emotional trauma; or begin a new life with John, one that will include a nice house and a stable lifestyle. While such a choice for many people may be an easy one, for Mollie it is complicated by the fact that she still believes she loves Philip — in fact, she believes that he has, from the moment they met, cast some sort of spell over her. She loves Phillip, even though she does not want to love him. John mentions that when one is in love, ordinary things look "luminous." When Mollie uses that as a test to see if she loves John or Phillip, she concludes that she loves both. Her response is to spend the night with Phillip.

Whether Phillip loves Mollie — or anyone, for that matter — is not easily answered. In fact, when she asks him how he feels, he answers, "Love you? I feel surrounded by a zone of loneliness." Finally, he admits, "No, Mollie, it's not love," but he argues that he must still be with her and receive her love to survive and continue writing. Mollie's role, one she has played very well for many years and still struggles to play, is to take care of Phillip. It is this role she seeks to escape in the play.

Love associated with Phillip is immature and base. When Phillip shows up at her house from the sanatorium, Mollie is caught by his spell, but she steps back from his presence and says, "But now I have to be adult and practical." With Phillip, there has always been a strong physical attraction for Mollie. She slept with him when she was fifteen, the first day she knew him. Even after he abandoned her and Paris on numerous occasions, "when he comes in the door, when he looks into my eyes, and when he — I — I always know what he wants," she says.

Love with John is more solid and practical. John is a bit boring and much less romantic than Phillip. He acknowledges that he has never really written a poem, even when he was in love. When Phillip accuses Mollie of falling for a boring man and becoming boring herself, he suggests that she and John sleep together to make sure "he's as good as me in the nighttime, Butterduck." He also reminds Mollie that she "used to like it in the car, in ditches, in open fields." But Phillip's ranting does not fluster John, for John is as solid and foursquare as the houses he builds. He has even translated his philosophy of life into mathematical calculations, stating that "the square root of sin" is humiliating someone and the square root of wonderful is Mollie.

Destruction and Death

Phillip is the perfect image of destruction, even though he is supposed to be someone who creates through his writing. His relationship with Mollie is destructive, for he thinks he can only feel secure after he has battered her with words, plates of spaghetti, or his fists. Phillip believes that he owns Mollie and tells John this within seconds of their first meeting.

Phillip's alcoholism is a hallmark of his self-destructiveness. In a conversation with Phillip, Paris notes that his father never got much done on the apple farm except when he "worked the still and made applejack." Mother Lovejoy reminisces about the days "before you discovered beer and spoiled your sweet tooth."

Death, darkness, and suicide color Phillip's character. The play opens with Paris waking up from a nightmare about a burglar in the house, and the burglar is his father. Phillip is in the sanatorium because he responded to his play's poor reviews by slashing his wrists. He continually tells Mollie that if she leaves with John, he will die. While his intentions are unclear, Phillip asks Paris to come with him when on his way to commit suicide. Phillip's destructiveness may extend to the desire to destroy his own child.

Disconnectedness

Everyone in the play has difficulty overcoming loneliness and connecting with other human beings. Mollie and Phillip's history is filled with clumsy attempts to connect with each other. When they met, her first attempt to reach out to him was to have sex with him; she then demanded that they get married immediately. Their relationship is based on Mollie's role as a helpmate, but she does not recognize Phillip as someone who cannot be helped. Phillip fails to connect with his son. Their conversations are disjointed and confusing, and Phillip tends to forget Paris's age and to send inappropriate birthday gifts.

Sister is an unmarried woman who does not understand quite how people get together, meet each other, and fall in love. Her loneliness has prompted her to create a series of imaginary lovers that she pretends to follow around the world to exotic locales. Mother Lovejoy does not listen to anyone and is oddly unaffected by her son's death. Paris does not understand any of the adults around him, and his relationships with most of his schoolmates seem to center on fights over the oddness of his name. The play ends on a note of success, though, when John and Mollie begin to make an honest connection with each other.

TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY

• All of the play's action and dialogue occur within the confines of the living room, but the characters refer to numerous conversations and events that take place offstage. Why do you think McCullers chose to limit the play's setting to the living room? Do you think this is effective, or would the play be stronger if some events that are only referred to were actually dramatized?
• Many critics have complained about McCullers's handling of humor in the play. List some examples of humor (or attempts at humor) in the play and discuss their effectiveness and impact.
• Much of the play is autobiographical. McCullers notes in the introduction to the 1958 published version that she gave Mollie many of the features her own mother possessed and that Phillip reflects many of the personality traits of her husband, Reeves. Critics have also suggested that McCullers's own experiences and struggles are reflected in the play's characters. Learn more about the author's life and then make a case that the play is or is not autobiographical.
• In the 1950s, many issues that appear in the play, such as sex, alcoholism, suicide, and mental illness, were viewed differently than they are today. Pick one of these topics and research how people viewed it in the 1950s. Compare this with how the issue is viewed with today. Do you think today's attitudes are an improvement or not?
• Write an epilogue for the play telling what you think the future will bring for Mollie, John, and Paris. Will they be happy? What challenges might each of them face?