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Part 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Fefu and Her Friends, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Abstract Representation and Interpretation
Empowerment, Female Independence, and Feminism
Attraction, Romance, and Companionship
Friendship and Mutual Support
Suffering, Repression, and Violence
Summary
Analysis
The four scenes in Part 2 all happen simultaneously, with the audience splitting into groups and viewing one scene at a time before moving to the next. Outside, Fefu and Emma load boxes of vegetables onto a wagon. As they work, Emma asks Fefu if she thinks about genitals “all the time.” Fefu says she doesn’t, but Emma admits that she herself constantly thinks about them—she can’t help but wonder about everyone’s genitals and thinks it’s odd that people don’t make a bigger deal of the fact that everyone has genitals. She thinks people act like they don’t even have them, which baffles her.
In many ways, Part 2 of Fefu and her Friends is less about what happens in each scene than it is about creating an experimental immersive experience for the audience. By breaking each scene up and having them take place simultaneously, the play enables audience members to walk through the lives of the characters, almost as if they’ve entered the world of the play itself. This also means that the way audience members interpret the play will depend on the order in which they experience the four scenes in Part 2. In this scene, Fefu and Emma simply make conversation while loading a vegetable wagon, but their conversation relates to the play’s interest in gender dynamics and the way society conceives of the various distinctions between men and women (the conversation also implicitly touches on feelings of sexual repression and society’s unwillingness to acknowledge sexuality). On its own, this conversation isn’t all that meaningful, but when considered alongside the other scenes, it will perhaps help create a cohesive whole.
Themes
Emma talks about how most people think that if they’re good they’ll go to heaven and if they’re bad they’ll go to hell. Fefu thinks this is right, but then Emma says that the criteria that determines whether someone is good or bad is specifically tied to sex—people who are good at sex go to heaven, and people who aren’t go to hell. Therefore, heaven is full of fantastic lovers.
Emma’s theory is lighthearted and humorous, but it also underscores the play’s suggestion that so much of life has to do with sex and sexual desire, even if society as a whole refuses to acknowledge this fact.
Themes
Fefu likes Emma’s idea, especially because it would mean that angels observe people having sex to determine whether or not they’re worthy of heaven. Emma enjoys this comment and says she always has a good time when she’s with Fefu. But then Fefu delivers an odd monologue about how she’s always in pain—but not physical pain, and not sadness, either. She can’t describe it, except that it feels as if she’s missing some kind of “lubricant” that’s supposed to be present in the body, and without this “lubricant,” life is excruciatingly difficult. She says that a stray cat started visiting her home, so she began to feed it. But then one day it came in and had diarrhea all over her kitchen. But she still feeds him—she’s afraid of him now, she says. The two women then go to play croquet.
Fefu’s comments about how she’s always in pain draw attention to the internal world of suffering she apparently experiences. This kind of suffering, however, is somewhat vague—it’s unclear what, exactly, makes her feel this way. In fact, even Fefu herself isn’t quite sure why she’s in pain; all she knows is that life often feels unbearable.
Themes
