Monologues for Women

Night Mother

Night Mother
by Marsha Norman

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Character: JESSIE- Jessie has not felt in charge of her life, but she takes charge of her death. At the play's opening, she is collecting old pillows and towels to minimize the mess when she shoots herself. Such meticulousness indicates Jessie's need for control, and is ironic in view of the violence of the act she is planning. Jessie plans to kill herself later on in the play and follows through with it.

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JESSIE- I am what became of your child. I found an old baby picture of me. And it was somebody else, not me. Somebody pink and fat, who never heard of sick or lonely, somebody who cried and got fed, and reached up and got held and kicked but didn't hurt anybody, and slept whenever she wanted to, just by closing her eyes. Somebody who mainly just laid there and laughed at the colors waving around her head and chewed on a polka-dot whale and woke up knowing some new trick nearly every day, and rolled over and drooled on the sheet and felt your hand pulling my quilt back up over me. That's who I started out and this is who's left. That's what this is about. It's somebody I lost, all right, it's my own self. Who I never was. Or who I tried to be and never got there. Somebody I waited for who never came. And never will. So, see, it doesn't much matter what else happens in the world or in this house even. I'm what was worth waiting for and I didn't make it. Me...who might have made a difference to me... I'm not going to show up, so there's no reason to stay, except to keep you company, and that's... not reason enough because I'm not very good company... am I?