Protagonist

Character Role Analysis

Betty

It's not easy to choose a protagonist for this play, since the attention shifts a lot from Act 1 to Act 2. Act 1 is mostly centered on Betty, Clive, Joshua, and Edward, while Act 2 is mostly about Edward, Victoria, and Lin. But if you had to choose a single protagonist, it would have to be Betty.

We choose Betty because, more than any other character, she makes the longest emotional and mental journey. Betty begins the play saying, "I am a man's creation as you see,/ And what men want is what I want to be" (1.1.20-21). But as the play unfolds, Betty learns how to be her own person and to escape the sexist ideas that her husband Clive and mother Maud have raised her to believe in.

In the second act, we see that Betty has taken the important step of leaving Clive. But she still hasn't really embraced being her own agent. Instead, she feels like "It's strange not having a man in the house. You don't know who to do things for" (2.2.398-399). But by the end of the play, Betty finally rejects Clive's accusations and learns to accept herself as an individual who has her own desires. Churchill cleverly symbolizes this self-acceptance by having Betty from Act 2 hug Betty from Act 1.

At the end of this insane, sex-crazed, hallucinatory play we feel warm and fuzzy about Betty's personal victory.