37 pages • 1 hour read
Neil SimonLost In Yonkers
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1991A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Act II, Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Act II, Part 1 Summary
Eddie informs his sons in his next letter that he has been hospitalized for “exhaustion.” He reminisces about the horrible mustard soup Grandma fed him when he was sick as a child. Arty, who is also sick, reads the letter in bed, dressed in a bathrobe. On Grandma’s orders, Jay brings him a bowl of the hated mustard soup. Arty refuses the bowl and then mentions Louie is napping in Bella’s bedroom. Jay mentions that a man came to the house searching for Louie and claiming that “the dance [will be] over” on Friday night (68). The boys worry that the gangster plans to kill Louie and will also try to kill them.
Grandma enters to chide Jay for taking so long to deliver the soup. She tells Arty his fever will not abate while he is lying in bed. Arty argues that his mother told him differently, but Grandma points out that this is her house, so they will follow her rules. She forces Arty to eat the soup. Arty fights back, saying that Grandma only wants to make other people miserable because “somebody made [her] miserable in Germany” (71). He tells her to take out her anger on Hitler rather than him and then quickly finishes the soup. Grandma and Jay exit, and Louie enters, complimenting Arty’s “moxie.” Arty tells Louie about the threatening message, but Louie does not seem concerned. He pushes back on Arty’s complaints about Grandma, referring to her difficult upbringing. When she was 12, in Berlin, her father was killed during an antisemitic political rally, and her foot was permanently damaged. She needed to be tough and has earned respect from her children. When he was young, Louie says, he ran away from home a dozen times. He always came back, though one time, he spent two weeks living on the streets.
On the way to the shower, Louie mentions that he plans to flee Yonkers in a few hours. When Arty worries his uncle is in trouble, Louie admits that he was “never not in trouble” (75). While Louie showers, Jay bursts in, complaining that Grandma is charging him for three pretzels stolen while he was delivering Arty’s soup. Jay tells Arty he needs to talk to Louie privately. Under pressure from Arty, Jay confesses that he knows that Louie is leaving tonight and that Jay wants to accompany him to escape Grandma. Arty is shocked but decides that he wants to get out too, admitting that Grandma scares him. Jay tells his brother to stay. Jay will find a job and save up enough money to send for his brother. The idea of himself and Jay as “gangsters” amuses Arty.
Bella enters and warns Jay that Grandma is searching for him. Aunt Gert, another of Grandma’s children, is coming for dinner, she says. Bella tells the boys that she will reveal her plans to marry Johnny at dinner and asks for their support in confronting Grandma. She is so worried, she says, that she “ate three pretzels” (79). Bella leaves and Louie reenters. Jay asks his uncle to take him away, but Louie is reluctant, saying that the only way Jay can make money fast is to steal it. He refuses Jay’s request, recommending that Jay stay in school and enjoy his childhood. When Jay presses the matter, Louie becomes angry, accusing Jay of looking in his hidden bag. He orders Jay to pick it up to test its weight, and Jay is reluctant, but Arty obliges, annoying Louie further. Arty refuses to look inside the bag, accusing Louie of being “a bully.” Louie again praises Arty for his moxie. He tells Jay to watch out for his family and then says that there is nothing in the bag but dirty clothes. He exits.
Grandma enters, looking for the boys. She orders Jay downstairs and Arty to dress. When Louie appears, she tells him that Bella has requested his presence at dinner and orders him to stay. She mentions money that Louie left on the dresser, saying that he must have forgotten about it. When Louie tells her he intended it as a birthday present for her, Grandma tells him to take back his “filthy money.”
Eddie sends money for the boys’ food and medicine in his next letter. After the dinner, Louie wants to leave, but Bella insists he stay. She gathers the family together ahead of her planned announcement. With Jay and Arty’s encouragement, Bella manages to explain that she wants to marry Johnny. The family receives the news badly. Louie asks Bella why she wants to marry a 40-year-old man who cannot read, becoming furious to the point that Aunt Gert asks Grandma to intervene. Louie accuses Johnny of sexually abusing Bella. Bella defends Johnny, saying he has lived at “the Home,” a facility for people with intellectual disabilities, which does not accommodate dangerous people. Louie tells her to forget about Johnny, making her cry. She is desperate to marry him and start a family of her own.
Grandma disapprovingly tells Bella to stop talking about her plans, making Bella more upset. Bella asserts that she would be a good mother and her children would be healthy, unlike Grandma’s children. She desperately wants someone to love her back before she dies. The room falls silent. Grandma retires to her bedroom, and Gert comforts Bella.
Act II, Part 1 Analysis
Interspersed throughout the play are Eddie’s letters to his sons, staged via voice-over. Often, the topics of his letters relate to the experiences of the boys in the current moment. For example, Arty reads Eddie’s letter about the unappetizing mustard soup while sick in bed, just before Jay delivers him a bowl of the soup. Though Eddie himself could not know how relevant his letters are, their ability to anticipate and mirror the suffering of his sons illustrates the trauma passed between generations. Because it comes from an old recipe from Grandma’s homeland, the soup symbolizes a small part of the broader suffering Grandma has endured and passed on to later generations. Eddie identifies his mother’s use of the soup, as he identifies many other brutal parenting methods, and makes light of it. Like much in the play, the letters are a comedic device that masks deep pain, but Eddie’s unwitting solidarity with his sons’ suffering also provides a path to Healing From Generational Trauma.
Uncle Louie’s character develops a great deal over the course of Act II. Early in the play, Arty and Jay speak about Louie as though he were a movie star, comparing him to the gangsters in films. They do not grasp his status as an unglamorous petty criminal. Simon suggests that Louie’s childhood of poverty and abuse has led him to the belief that he does not need to play by society’s rules. Like his mother, Louie is determined to be self-sufficient, and he allows this determination precedence over morality. This makes Louie very different from Eddie, who is very attached to his loved ones and strives to behave morally but is not self-sufficient. The boys’ respect for their uncle puts him at odds with their father, presenting two very different role models. They can choose to follow their father with an honest approach to life, or they can mimic their uncle’s criminality. They experiment with these roles when they sneak into the candy shop to look for Grandma’s hidden money. Though they are attempting a criminal act, their intent is to send the money to their father so that he doesn’t have to continue doing work that causes his heart problems. The boys’ attempts to navigate between these very different examples of manhood are part of their Transition From Childhood to Maturity.
This section of the play also contextualizes Grandma’s behavior. During one of the play’s most confrontational scenes, Arty accuses his grandmother of a string of misdeeds. However, rather than blame her directly for her cruelty, Arty places his grandmother’s actions in a broader context. He knows that she fled violent antisemitism in Germany and that she has suffered greatly over the course of her life. This suffering, he says, is the reason for her unhappiness, which she takes out on other people. Rather than blame Grandma for what she has done to him, his brother, and his other relations, Arty contextualizes her behavior by acknowledging that it is one of The Effects of War. Grandma is not evil or unique, his mature assessment posits, but a product of her environment. Arty’s speech reflects the widespread nature of war’s effects and reflects significant maturation from the boy who mocked his aunt.
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By Neil Simon
