51 pages • 1 hour read
Joan DidionPlay It As It Lays
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1970A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 41-50Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 41 Summary
Maria fantasizes about living with Kate and Les in a house by the sea. By morning, she realizes this is impossible. She worries that she will never be able to live the kind of wholesome, happy life she desires. Instead of focusing on these depressing thoughts, Maria buys a silver vinyl dress.
Chapter 42 Summary
Maria runs into Carter unexpectedly and tells him she is going to New York for a few days, which is a lie. She looks unkempt and avoids Carter’s eyes. Maria is still plagued by horrific images of the abortion: “All that day Maria thought of fetuses in the East River, translucent as jellyfish” (116).
Chapter 43 Summary
Maria has a flashback to talking with an actress who has had an abortion. The woman seemed nonchalant, telling Maria how she falsely testified in a sex-ring operation case in exchange for the District Attorney to set her up with a reputable doctor in New York. Maria tries to put her own experience in a similarly anecdotal light but cannot.
Chapter 44 Summary
Maria contacts a hypnotist to get to the root of her trauma. As she dials his number, she feels like she is “about to confirm a nightmare” (119).
Chapter 45 Summary
While Maria is getting her hair done, her hairdresser talks to a girl who blithely discusses having a pelvic abscess operation. Though the girl does not mention it, the pelvic abscess was likely the result of a botched abortion.
The girl and the hairdresser continue to gossip, ignoring Maria. The girl, a slender actress, seems desperate for the hairdresser to come to her social gathering. She tries to persuade him, dropping names of bigger stars who might be there. As Maria leaves, the narrator notes, “The girl was a presentiment of something” (121).
Chapter 46 Summary
Maria observes the other customers in the supermarket. She can tell which women live alone by the small amounts of food and the cans of cat food they buy. Maria tries to avoid looking lonely by buying food and household items in bulk, as if she is shopping for a large family, and the groceries remain in the Beverly Hills house untouched.
Chapter 47 Summary
Maria tries hypnosis but is unable to follow the hypnotist’s suggestions. While she is lying in his office, he says: “You’re lying in water and it’s warm and you hear your mother’s voice” (124). Maria replies that she doesn’t; instead, she is thinking about the drive to the hypnotist’s house.
Chapter 48 Summary
Maria reflects on her diminishing social status and her recurring nightmares. In the dreams, she is sending children to a gas chamber and comforting them when they begin to cry.
Chapter 49 Summary
Helene tells Maria how distraught she feels because her hairdresser is out of town. Maria mentions that a reporter has called to ask about Carter’s dating life, indicating that the world of Hollywood still thinks of Maria only in relation to Carter. Meanwhile, Helene begins to cry and tells Maria: “It’s shit […] It’s all shit” (127). Maria tells Helene not to be depressed, but Helene does not open up to her.
Chapter 50 Summary
To kill time, Maria drives up the coast to Oxnard. She calls Les from a payphone but is unable to reach him. On her way back to the car, she is accosted by a group of bikers who are breaking into cars. The narration is vague: “Later those few minutes in the plaza in Oxnard would come back to Maria and she would replay them, change the scenario. It ended that way badly, or well, depending on what you wanted” (130-131).
Chapter 41-50 Analysis
After Chapters 31-40, which span several months, Chapters 41-50 return to the narrative technique of zooming in on small moments, thus presenting the minute texture of Maria’s experience. These chapters lay out Maria’s fears and fantasies about her current life; the pervasive mood is one of sad futility and impending disaster. Maria’s dreams of happiness are offset by guilt-ridden nightmares and the harsh reality of her dysfunctional relationships.
Maria’s futile attempt to confront her trauma with the hypnotist in Chapter 44—a rare instance of trying to directly confront her pain—shows that, without any emotional support from friends or family, she is unable to bear the weight of her trauma. She encounters the stories of other women who have had abortions. They seem to take their experiences lightly, whereas Maria’s life is falling apart. Her relationships with her friends deteriorate. As Maria’s pain deepens, Carter’s coldness and Helene’s frivolity seem not only heartless but downright grotesque. Like BZ, Helene hides her pain behind mindless socializing and gossip. The girl at the salon, who drops names in an effort to get attention, foreshadows the social desperation Maria will feel later in the novel.
Chapter 50 presents a moment of tragic irony when a biker gang assaults Maria, like the gang assaulted her character in Angel Beach. This ambiguous passage is another example of both Didion and Maria withholding information from the reader. It’s also evidence of Maria’s growing ambivalence about the traumas she suffers.
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By Joan Didion
