How I Learned to Drive Summary

How I Learned to Drive Summary

An adult Li'l Bit tells the audience how she learned to drive. She grew up in Maryland in the 1950s and 1960s; in 1969 her Uncle Peck took her out in his Buick Riviera, but he does not take the role of the adult; instead, he plays the part of a child. He tells Li'l Bit that he has been very, very good, and when he tells her he has not had a drink all week, she rewards him by letting him undo her bra. She is extremely uncomfortable but does not try to fight him off. They leave the parking spot with Li'l Bit driving. She feels like something has happened that is wrong.

At dinner, the family start to discuss the size of her breasts. More discomfort. There is something about the teasing of her older male relatives that makes Li'l Bit realize she doesn't want to here them talk about her pendulous breasts anymore and so she runs from the room. Peck follows her and tries to cheer her up; she agrees to meet him later that night.

Li'l Bit doesn't put the word "abuse" to what is happening to her at the time. A year later she escapes to college, despite her family's belief that her dreams of attending will come to nothing. She starts drinking and is kicked out during her first year. She takes a job at a local factory by day, drag racing her car at night through the streets. Li'l Bit comes from a family of drinkers. Her mother was a social drinker and gave her tips on how to successfully drink without humiliating herself; eat lots of bread before going out drinking, don't order martinis because the sugar will make her drunk. Li'l Bit ignores most of the advice she is given. When she is sixteen Peck takes her out to celebrate her getting her driver's license and she orders a martini, which goes to her head so fast that she cannot walk without his help. He tries to take advantage but she tells him that their relationship makes her sad and uncomfortable. He promises that he will only do what she is comfortable with. Li'l Bit has been uncomfortable with their relationship for a long time. It started when she was fourteen and Uncle Peck took pin up style photographs of her. This made her Aunt Mary angry, but her anger was directed at Li'l Bit, for using her big breasts to tempt her uncle, rather than admonishing her husband for his sexual advances towards an under-age girl. It turns out that Uncle Peck first molested her when she was thirteen, but even her mother never found him accountable, telling Li'l Bit that if anything inappropriate happened then she herself would be to blame.

Later, when she is twenty-seven, Li'l Bit has a one-night stand with a boy ten years her junior and she starts to wonder if this makes her like Uncle Peck, and also wonders if they felt the same thing whilst having sex with someone so much younger than them. Uncle Peck drinks because of what he calls the "hidden pain" inside him. She wonders if this is his attraction to young girls.

At the end of the play, Li'l Bit realizes that she is ready to put the past behind her and remember Uncle Peck as the person who gave her freedom because he taught her how to drive. When she looks in the rear view mirror, she sees Peck's face, and she starts to drive away leaving him in the past where he belongs.

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