Overtones Response

After analyzing the play, I have determined that the “inner selves”, Hetty and Maggie, did not directly speak to one another.  They did however converse through their outer, physical selves.  Their physical beings, their more disciplined versions, took everything the inner selves were thinking and presented it in a much more graceful way.  This can be derived from the script because it is understood that Maggie and Hetty are inside their counterparts’, Margaret and Harriet’s, heads.  The inner selves cannot speak to each other because they are trapped inside of their physical beings.  Harriet and Margaret are so consumed with social acceptance that they are both missing out on things that they really want on the inside.  Sometimes their inner selves break through their protective social barrier to show a little bit more of what they are truly feeling.  In the beginning when Harriet and Hetty are conversing, Harriet becomes more emotional right before Margaret enters this shows that the inner selves can break the surface of Harriet or Margaret. 

I believe that the world of the play is staged mostly in Harriet and Margaret’s minds.  It is a mix of the physical and the mental worlds that these two women are living in.  They are together living in the physical world, but then they are each living in their own mental world.  The physical world is a place where status is extremely important.  Money is the driving force to power, popularity, and ultimately a happy life.  But different things run each of their mental worlds.  Harriet’s mental world, the world Hetty lives in, is full of anguish and jealousy.  Margaret’s mental world, also Maggie’s world, is a land that is starving and suffering. The physical world these women live in is their illusion.  Their real worlds are the ones that they live in where they love, aspire, suffer, and dream.  And these worlds come from within them.