A Lie Of The Mind: A Play in Three Acts

Frankie is Jake’s foil, representing all the opposite traits that Jake displays. Frankie is rational and reasonable, but he struggles to find his own role in either his own or Beth’s family. In the beginning, Frankie tries to help Jake, but he is thwarted by Lorraine, who quickly dominates the situation. Frankie goes to Montana because he wants to help resolve the situation in any way he can, and, having found that his own family will not let him help, he turns to Beth’s family. However, Frankie finds the same fragmentation and disarray in Beth’s family that he fought in his own. Frankie is a tragic character in the play, since his flaw is essentially his desire to reason with other people and try to form those bonds that could heal their fragmentation.

Frankie’s conflict is one of the only struggles that is not internal. Frankie knows that he wants to repair Jake and Beth’s relationship, if possible, and bring about a peaceful resolution to the conflicts of the play. It is other characters’ conflicts that prevent Frankie from achieving this goal, leading to the end of the play in which Frankie is trapped and possibly dying in Beth’s home. A critical detail in Frankie’s character is Beth’s attraction to him as a “feminine” man. Frankie lacks the competitive, violent drive that characterizes the other men in the play, which makes him both safe and comforting.

Beth is a catalyst in the play, as she survives Jake’s attack and drives conflict within the narrative. Beth is an actress and states that acting gives her an avenue to explore what it is like to be a different person. Jake’s violence, Mike making medical decisions for her, and Baylor’s dominating presence in her family’s home show that the men in Beth’s life have made all her decisions for her, leaving her no room for self-expression. This conflict creates an internal struggle for self-determination. In the end, Beth chooses Frankie because he lacks the controlling, destructive qualities of the other men in the play, which she hopes will allow her room to grow as a person.

Beth sustains a brain injury at the beginning of the play, and her gradual improvement over the course of events represents her process of self-realization. Though she loves Jake at the beginning of the play, she does not recognize him at the end, showing how she has grown beyond the conditioning that led her to value Jake’s attention despite his abuse. By the conclusion of the play, though Beth seems to be in a world of her own, she is making her own decisions and guiding her life in a way that she could not previously have done. Beth rejects the influence and control that Mike, especially, tries to force on her, best encapsulated in her rejection of Jake’s presence in the house. The only characters Beth can communicate with are Meg and Frankie, who lack the desire to control or subordinate her.

Mike is Beth’s brother and Baylor and Meg’s son, and his struggle largely centers on the challenge of overcoming Baylor’s oppressive masculinity. Mike is competitive and prone to violence, just like Jake and Baylor, but he is a secondary figure in the text. Mike does not have the authority and control that Baylor possesses, nor is he capable of using violence as influence in the way Jake does. As a result, Mike is in a constant state of anxiety, where he feels he is not as important or capable as Baylor, but he cannot subvert Jake’s hold over Beth, either. As Beth turns to Frankie, rather than Mike, it causes Mike to seek more overt forms of control, culminating in him “taming” Jake. The entire final sequence, for Mike, shows the extremes to which Mike must turn to feel like a valid man in the structure of the play. He uses the American flag and a rifle to subdue Jake and force him into submission before the family. However, Mike’s attempt fails, everyone ignores him, and Jake does not perform according to Mike’s will.

In the end, Mike leaves the family, since he cannot establish a role within it. Mike cannot influence Baylor, who maintains control over Meg, and Beth has chosen Frankie rather than Jake. Mike represents an entire generation of men who lack the desire for patriarchal authority present in the former generation. Where men like Baylor and Jake’s father were raised with and given the chance to establish patriarchal roles as soldiers and homesteaders, Mike doesn’t have an ideal to shape his identity.

Lorraine is Jake, Sally, and Frankie’s mother, and she struggles to define her roles as a wife and mother. When Jake’s father was alive, Lorraine tried to force him to be a part of their family. When that failed, Lorraine gave up on marriage and focused on motherhood. For Lorraine, Jake’s marriage was a form of failure, since her son was leaving her, just as her husband did. When she gets the chance to repair this relationship and transform Jake back into a child for whom she can care, she tries to reestablish that feeling of importance. However, Jake leaves again, forcing Lorraine to reevaluate her role, again, and she concludes, alongside Sally, that there is no point in trying to make a family work. Instead, she flees to find a new family in another country, bringing Sally along with her.

Lorraine’s internal struggle provides a contrast to Meg, whose husband is present but not active in their family. Lorraine is raising her family alone, but none of her children let her take on an authoritative role in their lives. Her outdated concept of her family places a wedge between her and her children, as she tries to bind Frankie and Jake to their childhood home. Lorraine’s mistreatment of Sally shows an internal struggle, as well, with Lorraine’s sense of femininity, which she sees as a process of tying herself to a man. Only when her husband is dead, Frankie is gone, and Jake has left can Lorraine see Sally as an ally.

Sally is Lorraine’s daughter and Jake and Frankie’s sister, and she is a secondary character in the text. Sally is used to provide exposition and insight on Jake and Lorraine’s struggles. Though she is a rational character, like Frankie, she lacks Frankie’s sense of direction. Where Frankie tries to reach out to Beth’s family, Sally focuses on trying to find her own role with her family despite their conflicts. However, Sally ultimately makes no decisions for herself, which is best represented in her decision to drive around the house before confronting Jake, rather than leaving. When Lorraine proposes that Sally start a new town, though unrealistic, Sally’s response highlights her lack of direction, as she cannot imagine moving to a new town, starting a new life, or living independently from her family.

Sally finds her role as a subordinate to Lorraine in the conclusion of the text. Lorraine guides Sally through the idea of burning their possessions and moving to Ireland, and, though Sally has doubts about this plan, she acquiesces to Lorraine’s will. Sally sees herself as separate from the conflicts in her family, but she maintains a sense that her identity is tied to her siblings and mother. In retelling the story of Jake and their father’s competition, Sally is an external witness to the events, just as she witnesses Jake’s delusions and Lorraine’s decisions.

Baylor is Beth and Mike’s father and Meg’s husband, and he represents a vestige of America’s past. Living in rural Montana, Baylor adheres to an unattainable ideal, including the ideal of maintaining a strict patriarchal control over his home. Baylor’s fantasy of pioneering in the Montana wilderness fits into an older version of American masculinity that thrived during the frontier days of westward expansion, but which is no longer a critical part of American identity in the late 20th century. The fact that Baylor hunts constantly but never shoots a deer is emblematic of this struggle, as he tries to hold onto a tradition that no longer fits into a modern society.

Because he has lost the fundamental parts of what Baylor sees as his identity, he pulls away from his family, forming a stoic, masculine persona that does not bother with the minutiae of everyday life. Instead, Baylor tries to bring discussions toward the elements that define him, such as hunting, farming, and the American flag. When anyone tries to discuss a present issue with Baylor, he deflects and avoids the conversation, as he does with Beth’s healthcare, Frankie’s presence in the house, or Mike’s desperate cries for attention.