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Anna Christie

Not on your life, it wasn't. It was true...

Overview

Gender
Female
Playing Age
Young Adult
Style
Dramatic
Act/Scene
Act 1
Time & Place
On the barge during Anna's confession, she describes the farm, the nurse job, and the men who shaped her hatred.
Length
Short
Time Period
Contemporary
Show Type
Play
Age Guidance
Thirteen Plus (PG-13)

Context

Text

Not on your life, it wasn't. It was true for two years. I didn't go wrong all at one jump. Being a nurse girl was yust what finished me. Taking care of other people's kids, always listening to their bawling and crying, caged in, when you're only a kid yourself and want to go out and see things. At last I got the chance—to get into that house. And you bet your life I took it! [Defiantly.] And I ain't sorry neither. [After a pause—with bitter hatred.] It was all men's fault—the whole business. It was men on the farm ordering and beating me—and giving me the wrong start. Then when I was a nurse, it was men again hanging around, bothering me, trying to see what they could get. [She gives a hard laugh.] And now it's men all the time. Gawd, I hate 'em all, every mother's son of 'em! Don't you?

Performance Tips

Emotional Beat Breakdown

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