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Jesus Medina

Professor Rodrick

English 115

November 13, 2019

Play It as It Lays

The book ​Play It as It Lays​ by Joan Didion is about a woman named Maria Wyeth and

her life in the Hollywood lifestyle. Maria is married to a man named Carter who both have a

daughter named Kate that is hospitalized. Carter is a filmmaker and has had huge success with

the first two films he has had that also star Maria, his wife. With this success, Carter’s career has

skyrocketed, often spending most of his time away from Maria and his home filming movies in

different locations because lots of people want to work with him. With Carter’s newfound

success, Maria starts to feel jealous of his success and lonely because Carter is usually away and

begins to act out. Although it seems like Maria has a good life she is undoubtedly depressed

because of her daughter being in the hospital with no sign of coming home and was forced into

an abortion, she feels lost and greatly impacted by her mother’s death in a car accident, and lost

and lonely because of her and Carter’s relationship with each other.

Maria and Carter were married, until divorce, and have a daughter named Kate. In the

book, it is mentioned that Kate is in the hospital because of a certain problem she has with her

back. Both Carter and Maria are trying their best to get her back home and feeling better. Carter

seems to care about Kate and wants her home but because he works a lot it seems that he isn’t

available to visit his daughter at the hospital often. On the other hand, Maria seems to constantly

visit her and is very much devastated by the fact that her daughter is in the hospital. There are
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moments in the book where Maria talks about her daughter and hows she’s trying her best to

bring her home, which lets you know that she thinks about her daughter a lot. Later in the book,

Maria has an affair and gets pregnant and Carter forces her to get an abortion. In Play It as It

Lays the author, Joan Didion, mentions, “I’m having a baby,” she heard herself telling...she sat in

the driver’s seat of the Corvette and cried. She was crying too much. All the time now...when she

was pretending to herself that she could have the baby, she was wondering when and where

would it happen” (36). And according to the author of the article “The Emotional Side Effects of

Abortion” states, “Emotional and psychological effects following abortion are more common

than physical side effects and can range from mild regret to more serious complications such as

depression” (Author 1). We are easily able to infer that Maria is in fact depressed and not happy

with her life as it is. She has a daughter that is in the hospital whom she is not able to see grow

up or have mother-daughter time with. Maria then finds out that she is pregnant and knows that

she can’t have the baby. Finding out that she can’t have the opportunity to have a relationship

with her new child possibly adds on to her already existing sadness with her daughter Kate being

in the hospital, making her fall into depression.

In the story, Maria loses her mother in a horrible car accident on the freeway and is told

that it may have been intentional. The loss of a parent will always be full of grieving and

sadness. But for Maria maybe it’s more of the fact that she is not able to get closure on whether

her mother’s death was an accident or on purpose which affects her greatly. The author Joan

Didion of the book ​Play It as It Lays​ tells, “THE NEXT MORNING in the dry still heat she

woke crying for her mother...Exactly what time had it happened, precisely what had she been

doing in New York at the instant her mother lost control of the car outside Tonopah” (34). From
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this quote, we can understand that Maria is devastated that she may never know what actually

happened to her mother in the car accident. She thinks that her mother was distracted and lost

control of the car. It is almost as if she doesn’t want to face the truth that maybe her mom caused

the accident on purpose. Not knowing what happened exactly to her mother, the guilt of not

being as in touch with her mother and losing her has definitely impacted and plays a role in her

depression. The author also mentions, “She was staring into a hand mirror, picking out her

mother's features” (35). This quote helps us understand how much Maria loved her mother.

While in a phone call with Carter she tends to look at herself and tries to find her mother within

herself. We can infer that since Maria is trying to find her features that her mother had in herself,

maybe she is feeling lost. It is as if she is lost and has lost a part of her identity with her mother

being gone and doesn’t know who she is anymore. With the interpretation of Maria being

devastated about her mother’s death and not knowing whether it was an accident or not and then

her trying to find her mother in herself and feeling lost with her identity it is safe to say that she

is depressed due to these and her other circumstances in her life.

With Maria having an affair and Carter being away often for his work, Carter and her

ultimately get a divorce. Now, Kate being in the hospital and Carter usually being away to focus

on his work Maria starts to feel lonely. Because she feels lonely she starts an affair with a family

friend named Les Goodwin, who is the one that got her pregnant and who’s baby she had to get

an abortion. Carter finds out and forces her to abortion and eventually, both of them get

divorced. Along with this divorce adding to her loneliness and her depression she is feeling even

more lost than ever. Maria lost her baby, her work because of not being able to land a role along

with the fame and attention that came along with it, and her husband. All of these losses
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concludes and adds to her feeling of being lost and losing a part of her identity. This results in

the fact that Maria then relies heavily on drugs and alcohol to feel better in her life. According to

the narrator of the video on “Positive vs. Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms for Depression”

mentions in the video, “But if we’re talking depression, a mental illness characterized by intense

feelings of sadness, then we might need to be more careful about how we cope with this

sadness… If you’re suffering from depression, there are some ways that aren’t very healthy in

terms of dealing with it. Many people who are depressed might not recognize depression as

illness at first. As a result. Many people try to numb the pain of depression with drugs and

alcohol.” (Narrator 1). The narrator of this quote mentions that the use of drugs and alcohol is a

way that many people suffering from depression cope and is very unhealthy. Clearly, our

character Maria is undoubtedly suffering from depression and uses and depends on drugs and

alcohol to numb her from the pain she feels.

Maria is not happy with the way her life is and the direction it went. In the story, we

know Maria and Carter have a daughter who is hospitalized and has an impact on Maria and later

she is also forced into an abortion. Before she gets the abortion we know she is deeply sad about

it because she begins to cry as she imagines her life if she were to keep the baby. When she got

news of her mother passing away due to a car accident that could have been on purpose, Maria

feels a sense of her identity being taken away and feeling lost because she will never be able to

get closure on what her mom was doing and whether it was an accident or not, which she hopes

it was. Then Carter and Maria start to have problems in their relationship, both have an affair and

ultimately get a divorce resulting in Maria feeling even more lonely than she already was. In
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conclusion, because of all these factors, Maria starts to feel really sad and falls into depression

and relies heavily on drug and alcohol use to numb her from the pain she feels internally.
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Works Cited

~ Didion, Joan. Play It as It Lays. Pocket Books, 1978.

~ “Emotional Side Effects of Abortion.” American Pregnancy Association, 24 Sept. 2019.

Accessed Nov. 13, 2019.

https://americanpregnancy.org/unplanned-pregnancy/abortion-emotional-effects/

~ “Positive vs. Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms for Depression.” Study.com, Study.com.

Accessed Nov. 17, 2019.

https://study.com/academy/lesson/positive-vs-unhealthy-coping-mechanisms-for-depressi

on.html#transcriptHeader