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Chapter 72
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Play It As It Lays, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Meaninglessness
Gender Inequality and Identity
Loss and Recovery
Superficiality
Summary
Analysis
There are 10 days remaining in the desert shoot. Carter tells Maria to come out and watch, but Maria doesn’t go and sits in the motel office instead. She studies the sheriff’s framed photos of accidents that hang on the office wall and imagines being in the car when they happened. She envisions the rattlesnake she thinks must be on the embankment. The next day, Maria borrows a gun from the film’s stunt man and shoots road signs along the highway. When Carter asks her why she did it, she replies, “I just did it.”
The images of car wrecks remind Maria of her mother’s death. When Maria imagines rattlesnakes that lie coiled on the embankment, she’s meditating on the idea that danger can emerge out of nowhere and with little warning. Maria performs her road sign shooting spree aimlessly and without emotion. She can think of no explanations for her actions other than that she “just did it.” Just like her relationships, which Maria has described as having no point beyond themselves, Maria’s shooting spree is meaningless.
Themes
Sometime later, Carter confronts Maria about her perpetually “glazed expression” and encourages her to come out with everyone today. Maria says she will but goes to the coffee shop instead. The woman who runs the shop invites Maria to her trailer at the edge of town. At the trailer, the woman mentions how someone named Lee ran off with a girl from Barstow, which causes Maria to cry. The woman asks her if she ever “made a decision,” explaining that she made hers “at a meeting” in 1961 and has “never shed one tear since.” Maria replies, “No.”
BZ’s advice seems to have struck a chord with Maria. She’s been forced to reevaluate how much she actually cares about anything. The “glazed expression” on her face suggests that she cares less than she thought she did. When the woman asks Maria if she ever “made a decision,” she’s alluding to the decision to join a 12-step program like Alcoholics Anonymous. Maria’s simple response, “no,” is an answer to the woman’s specific question. It’s also an answer to whether Maria ever “made a decision,” in the general sense. In responding “no,” Maria indirectly affirms her commitment to an indifferent, uncaring existence. She has not “made a decision” about anything in a long time, nor does she ever wish to make a decision again.
Themes
