proof poem

Read the play Proof, and then write an analysis of one of the characters. You may use the brainstorming questions below to generate ideas, or you may refer to the Week 3 discussion prompt for a refresher on ways character is revealed.

For this assignment, develop a short essay of at least three paragraphs and 500 words. In your response, be sure that you have the following: an introductory paragraph with a clear thesis statement, at least one body paragraph with supporting reasons, examples, and quotations from the play, and a concluding paragraph. The thesis statement should be your main argument analyzing the character you have chosen. Use APA style for formatting the paper and for in-text citations and end references.

Brainstorming Questions

Select a character from Proof. What main emotion is the character experiencing? What does he or she want? What is the conflict this character encounters? How does he or she attempt to get this desire? What prevents him or her from achieving it? What is the resolution by the end of the play for this character? Does the character change by the end of the play? What point do you want to make about the character in your essay? Make notes, and develop a thesis statement with support.

Reminders

• Use APA style, and include a title page, running header, proper font and spacing, in-text citations, and a separate references page.
• Do not use any outside sources to complete this response; rely on your own insights.
• Quoted material from the play should not exceed 25% of the essay.
• You may exceed the minimum word and paragraph count.

Running head:

CHARACTER ANALYSIS

CHARACTER ANALYSIS

Proof (2001) SETTING

The back porch of a house in chicago

CHARACTERS

Robert, fifties Hal, twenty-eight Catherine, twenty-five Claire, twenty-nine

ACT 1 SCENE 1

Night. Catherine sits in a chair. She is exhausted, haphazardly dressed. Eyes closed. Robert is stand- ing behind her. He is Catherine’s father. Rumpled academic look. Catherine does not know he is there. After a moment:

ROBERT: Can’t sleep? CATHERINE: Jesus, you scared me. ROBERT: Sorry. CATHERINE: What are you doing here? ROBERT: I thought I’d check up on you. Why aren’t you in bed? 5

Gwyneth Paltrow as Catherine and Jake Gyllenhaal as Hal in the 2005 film adaptation of Proof Miramax/The Kobal Collection/Picture-Desk

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CATHERINE: Your student is still here. He’s up in your study. ROBERT: He can let himself out. CATHERINE: I might as well wait up till he’s done. ROBERT: He’s not my student anymore. He’s teaching now. Bright kid.

Beat.

10 CATHERINE: What time is it? ROBERT: It’s almost one.

CATHERINE: Huh. ROBERT: After midnight . . . CATHERINE: So?

15 ROBERT: So: (He indicates something on the table behind him: a bottle of champagne.) Happy birthday.

CATHERINE: Dad. ROBERT: Do I ever forget? CATHERINE: Thank you. ROBERT: Twenty-five. I can’t believe it.

20 CATHERINE: Neither can I. Should we have it now? ROBERT: It’s up to you.

CATHERINE: Yes. ROBERT: You want me to open it? CATHERINE: Let me. Last time you opened a bottle of champagne out here you

broke a window. 25 ROBERT: That was a long time ago. I resent your bringing it up.

CATHERINE: You’re lucky you didn’t lose an eye.

Pop. The bottle foams.

ROBERT: Twenty-five! CATHERINE: I feel old. ROBERT: You’re a kid.

30 CATHERINE: Glasses? ROBERT: Goddamn it, I forgot the glasses. Do you want me to— CATHERINE: Nah.

Catherine drinks from the bottle. A long pull. Robert watches her.

ROBERT: I hope you like it. I wasn’t sure what to get you.

CATHERINE: This is the worst champagne I have ever tasted. 35 ROBERT: I am proud to say I don’t know anything about wines. I hate those kind of

people who are always talking about “vintages.” CATHERINE: It’s not even champagne. ROBERT: The bottle was the right shape. CATHERINE: “Great Lakes Vineyards.” I didn’t know they made wine in Wisconsin. ROBERT: A girl who’s drinking from the bottle shouldn’t complain. Don’t guzzle it.

It’s an elegant beverage. Sip. 40 CATHERINE: (offering the bottle) Do you—

ROBERT: No, go ahead.

CATHERINE: You sure? ROBERT: Yeah. It’s your birthday. CATHERINE: Happy birthday to me. ROBERT: What are you going to do on your birthday? 45 CATHERINE: Drink this. Have some. ROBERT: No. I hope you’re not spending your birthday alone. CATHERINE: I’m not alone. ROBERT: I don’t count. CATHERINE: Why not? 50 ROBERT: I’m your old man. Go out with some friends. CATHERINE: Right. ROBERT: Your friends aren’t taking you out? CATHERINE: No. ROBERT: Why not? 55 CATHERINE: Because in order for your friends to take you out you generally have

to have friends. ROBERT: (dismissive) Oh— CATHERINE: It’s funny how that works. ROBERT: You have friends. What about that cute blonde, what was her name? CATHERINE: What? 60 ROBERT: She lives over on Ellis Avenue—you used to spend every minute together. CATHERINE: Cindy Jacobsen? ROBERT: Cindy Jacobsen! CATHERINE: That was in third grade, Dad. Her family moved to Florida in 1983. ROBERT: What about Claire? 65 CATHERINE: She’s not my friend, she’s my sister. And she’s in New York. And

I don’t like her. ROBERT: I thought she was coming in. CATHERINE: Not till tomorrow.

Beat.

ROBERT: My advice, if you find yourself awake late at night, is to sit down and do some mathematics.

CATHERINE: Oh please. 70 ROBERT: We could do some together. CATHERINE: No. ROBERT: Why not?

CATHERINE: I can’t think of anything worse. You sure you don’t want any? ROBERT: Yeah, thanks. You used to love it. 75 CATHERINE: Not anymore. ROBERT: You knew what a prime number was before you could read. CATHERINE: Well now I’ve forgotten. ROBERT: (Hard) Don’t waste your talent, Catherine.

Beat.

CATHERINE: I knew you’d say something like that. 80

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ROBERT: I realize you’ve had a difficult time. CATHERINE: Thanks. ROBERT: That’s not an excuse. Don’t be lazy. CATHERINE: I haven’t been lazy, I’ve been taking care of you.

85 ROBERT: Kid, I’ve seen you. You sleep till noon, you eat junk, you don’t work, the dishes pile up in the sink. If you go out it’s to buy magazines. You come back with a stack of magazines this high—I don’t know how you read that crap. And those are the good days. Some days you don’t get up, you don’t get out of bed.

CATHERINE: Those are the good days. ROBERT: Bullshit. Those days are lost. You threw them away. And you’ll never

know what else you threw away with them—the work you lost, the ideas you didn’t have, discoveries you never made because you were moping in your bed at four in the afternoon. (Beat.) You know I’m right. (Beat.)

CATHERINE: I’ve lost a few days.

ROBERT: How many? 90 CATHERINE: Oh, I don’t know.

ROBERT: I bet you do. CATHERINE: What? ROBERT: I bet you count. CATHERINE: Knock it off.

95 ROBERT: Well do you know or don’t you? CATHERINE: I don’t.

ROBERT: Of course you do. How many days have you lost? CATHERINE: A month. Around a month. ROBERT: Exactly.

100 CATHERINE: Goddamn it, I don’t— ROBERT: How many?

CATHERINE: Thirty-three days. ROBERT: Exactly? CATHERINE: I don’t know.

105 ROBERT: Be precise, for Chrissake. CATHERINE: I slept till noon today. ROBERT: Call it thirty-three and a quarter days. CATHERINE: Yes, all right. ROBERT: You’re kidding!

110 CATHERINE: No. ROBERT: Amazing number! CATHERINE: It’s a depressing fucking number. ROBERT: Catherine, if every day you say you’ve lost were a year, it would be a very

interesting fucking number. CATHERINE: Thirty-three and a quarter years is not interesting.

115 ROBERT: Stop it. You know exactly what I mean. CATHERINE: (conceding) 1729 weeks. ROBERT: 1729. Great number. The smallest number expressible— CATHERINE: —expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways. ROBERT: 12 cubed plus 1 cubed equals 1729.

CATHERINE: And 10 cubed plus 9 cubed. Yes, we’ve got it, thank you. 120 ROBERT: You see? Even your depression is mathematical. Stop moping and get to

work. The kind of potential you have— CATHERINE: I haven’t done anything good. ROBERT: You’re young. You’ve got time. CATHERINE: I do?

ROBERT: Yes. 125 CATHERINE: By the time you were my age you were famous. ROBERT: By the time I was your age I’d already done my best work.

Beat.

CATHERINE: What about after? ROBERT: After what? CATHERINE: After you got sick. 130 ROBERT: What about it? CATHERINE: You couldn’t work then. ROBERT: No, if anything I was sharper. CATHERINE: (She can’t help it: she laughs.) Dad. ROBERT: I was. Hey, it’s true. The clarity—that was the amazing thing. No doubts. 135 CATHERINE: You were happy? ROBERT: Yeah, I was busy. CATHERINE: Not the same thing. ROBERT: I don’t see the difference. I knew what I wanted to do and I did it.

If I wanted to work a problem all day long, I did it.

If I wanted to look for information—secrets, complex and tantalizing messages— I could find them all around me. In the air. In a pile of fallen leaves some neighbor raked together. In box scores in the paper, written in the steam coming up off a cup of coffee. The whole world was talking to me.

If I just wanted to close my eyes, sit quietly on the porch and listen for the messages, I did that.

It was wonderful.

Beat.

CATHERINE: How old were you? When it started. 140 ROBERT: Mid-twenties. Twenty-three, four. (Beat.) Is that what you’re worried

about? CATHERINE: I’ve thought about it. ROBERT: Just getting a year older means nothing, Catherine. CATHERINE: It’s not just getting older. ROBERT: It’s me. 145

Beat.

CATHERINE: I’ve thought about it. ROBERT: Really? CATHERINE: How could I not?

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ROBERT: Well if that’s why you’re worried you’re not keeping up with the medical literature. There are all kinds of factors. It’s not simply something you inherit. Just because I went bughouse doesn’t mean you will.

150 CATHERINE: Dad . . . ROBERT: Listen to me. Life changes fast in your early twenties and it shakes you up.

You’re feeling down. It’s been a bad week. You’ve had a lousy couple years, no

one knows that better than me. But you’re gonna be okay. CATHERINE: Yeah? ROBERT: Yes. I promise you. Push yourself. Don’t read so many magazines. Sit down

and get the machinery going and I swear to God you’ll feel fine. The simple fact

that we can talk about this together is a good sign. CATHERINE: A good sign?

155 ROBERT: Yes! CATHERINE: How could it be a good sign? ROBERT: Because! Crazy people don’t sit around wondering if they’re nuts. CATHERINE: They don’t? ROBERT: Of course not. They’ve got better things to do. Take it from me. A very

good sign that you’re crazy is an inability to ask the question “Am I crazy?” 160 CATHERINE: Even if the answer is yes?

ROBERT: Crazy people don’t ask. You see? CATHERINE: Yes. ROBERT: So if you’re asking . . . CATHERINE: I’m not.

165 ROBERT: But if you were, it would be a very good sign. CATHERINE: A good sign . . . ROBERT: A good sign that you’re fine. CATHERINE: Right.

ROBERT: You see? You’ve just gotta think these things through. Now come on, what do you say? Let’s call it a night; you go up, get some sleep, and then in the morning you can—

170 CATHERINE: Wait. No. ROBERT: What’s the matter? CATHERINE: It doesn’t work. ROBERT: Why not? CATHERINE: It doesn’t make sense.

175 ROBERT: Sure it does. CATHERINE: No.

ROBERT: Where’s the problem? CATHERINE: The problem is you are crazy! ROBERT: What difference does that make?

180 CATHERINE: You admitted—You just told me that you are. ROBERT: So?

CATHERINE: You said a crazy person would never admit that. ROBERT: Yeah, but it’s . . . Oh. I see. CATHERINE: So?

185 ROBERT: It’s a point.

CATHERINE: So how can you admit it? ROBERT: Well. Because I’m also dead. (Beat.) Aren’t I? CATHERINE: You died a week ago. ROBERT: Heart failure. Quick. The funeral’s tomorrow. CATHERINE: That’s why Claire’s flying in from New York. 190 ROBERT: Yes. CATHERINE: You’re sitting here. You’re giving me advice. You brought me

champagne. ROBERT: Yes.

Beat.

CATHERINE: Which means . . . ROBERT: For you? 195 CATHERINE: Yes. ROBERT: For you, Catherine, my daughter, who I love very much . . . It could be

a bad sign.

They sit together for a moment. Noise off. Hal enters, semi-hip clothes. He carries a backpack and a jacket, folded. He lets the door go and it bangs shut. Catherine sits up with a jolt.

CATHERINE: What? HAL: Oh God, sorry—did I wake you? CATHERINE: What? 200 HAL: Were you asleep?

Beat. Robert is gone.

CATHERINE: You scared me, for Chrissake. What are you doing? HAL: I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it had gotten so late. I’m done for the night. CATHERINE: Good. HAL: Drinking alone? 205

Catherine realizes she is holding the champagne bottle. She puts it down quickly.

CATHERINE: Yes. HAL: Champagne, huh? CATHERINE: Yes. HAL: Celebrating? CATHERINE: No. I just like champagne. 210 HAL: It’s festive. CATHERINE: What? HAL: Festive. (He makes an awkward “party” gesture.) CATHERINE: Do you want some? HAL: Sure. 215 CATHERINE: (gives him the bottle) I’m done. You can take the rest with you. HAL: Oh. No thanks. CATHERINE: Take it, I’m done. HAL: No, I shouldn’t. I’m driving. (Beat.) Well I can let myself out. CATHERINE: Good. 220

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HAL: When should I come back? CATHERINE: Come back? HAL: Yeah. I’m nowhere near finished. Maybe tomorrow? CATHERINE: We have a funeral tomorrow.

225 HAL: God, you’re right, I’m sorry. I was going to attend, if that’s all right. CATHERINE: Yes.

HAL: What about Sunday? Will you be around? CATHERINE: You’ve had three days. HAL: I’d love to get in some more time up there.

230 CATHERINE: How much longer do you need? HAL: Another week. At least. CATHERINE: Are you joking? HAL: No. Do you know how much stuff there is? CATHERINE: A week?

235 HAL: I know you don’t need anybody in your hair right now. Look, I spent the last couple days getting everything sorted out. It’s mostly notebooks. He dated them all; now that I’ve got them in order I don’t have to work here. I could take some stuff home, read it, bring it back.

CATHERINE: No. HAL: I’ll be careful. CATHERINE: My father wouldn’t want anything moved and I don’t want anything to

leave this house. HAL: Then I should work here. I’ll stay out of the way.

240 CATHERINE: You’re wasting your time. HAL: Someone needs to go through your dad’s papers. CATHERINE: There’s nothing up there. It’s garbage. HAL: There are a hundred and three notebooks. CATHERINE: I’ve looked at those. It’s gibberish.

245 HAL: Someone should read them. CATHERINE: He was crazy. HAL: Yes, but he wrote them. CATHERINE: He was a graphomaniac, Harold. Do you know what that is? HAL: I know. He wrote compulsively. Call me Hal.

250 CATHERINE: There’s no connection between the ideas. There’s no ideas. It’s like a monkey at a typewriter. A hundred and three notebooks full of bullshit.

HAL: Let’s make sure they’re bullshit. CATHERINE: I’m sure. HAL: I’m prepared to look at every page. Are you? CATHERINE: No. I’m not crazy.

Beat.

255 HAL: Well, I’m gonna be late . . . Some friends of mine are in this band. They’re playing at a bar up on Diversey. Way down the bill, they’re probably going on around two, two-thirty. I said I’d be there.

CATHERINE: Great.

HAL: They’re all in the math department. They’re really good. They have this great song—you’d like it—called “i”—lower-case I. They just stand there and don’t play anything for three minutes.

CATHERINE: “Imaginary Number.” HAL: It’s a math joke. You see why they’re way down the bill. CATHERINE: Long drive to see some nerds in a band. 260 HAL: God I hate when people say that. It is not that long a drive. CATHERINE: So they are nerds. HAL: Oh they’re raging geeks. But they’re geeks who, you know, can dress them-

selves . . . hold down a job at a major university . . . Some of them have switched from glasses to contacts. They play sports, they play in a band, they get laid surprisingly often, so in that sense they sort of make you question the whole set of terms: geek, nerd, wonk, dweeb, dilbert, paste-eater.

CATHERINE: You’re in this band, aren’t you? HAL: Okay, yes. I play drums. You want to come? I never sing, I swear to God. 265 CATHERINE: No thanks. HAL: All right. Look, Catherine, Monday: what do you say? CATHERINE: Don’t you have a job? HAL: Yeah, I have a full teaching load this quarter plus my own work. CATHERINE: Plus band practice. 270 HAL: I don’t have time to do this but I’m going to. If you’ll let me. (Beat.) I loved

your dad. I don’t believe a mind like his can just shut down. He had lucid

moments. He had a lucid year, a whole year four years ago. CATHERINE: It wasn’t a year. It was more like nine months. HAL: A school year. He was advising students . . . I was stalled on my Ph.D. I was

this close to quitting. I met with your dad and he put me on the right track with

my research. I owe him. CATHERINE: Sorry. HAL: Look. Let me—You’re twenty-five, right? 275 CATHERINE: How old are you? HAL: It doesn’t matter. Listen. CATHERINE: Fuck you, how old are you? HAL: I’m twenty-eight, all right? When your dad was younger than both of us, he

made major contributions to three fields: game theory, algebraic geometry, and nonlinear operator theory. Most of us never get our heads around one. He basi- cally invented the mathematical techniques for studying rational behavior, and he gave the astrophysicists plenty to work over too. Okay?

CATHERINE: Don’t lecture me. 280 HAL: I’m not. I’m telling you, if I came up with one-tenth of the shit your dad

produced, I could write my own ticket to any math department in the country.

Beat.

CATHERINE: Give me your backpack. HAL: What? CATHERINE: Give me your backpack.

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285 HAL: Why? CATHERINE: I want to look inside it. HAL: What? CATHERINE: Open it and give it to me. HAL: Oh come on.

290 CATHERINE: You’re not taking anything out of this house. HAL: I wouldn’t do that.

CATHERINE: You’re hoping to find something upstairs that you can publish. HAL: Sure. CATHERINE: Then you can write your own ticket.

295 HAL: What? No! It would be under your dad’s name. It would be for your dad. CATHERINE: I don’t believe you. You have a notebook in that backpack. HAL: What are you talking about? CATHERINE: Give it to me.

HAL: You’re being a little bit paranoid. 300 CATHERINE: Paranoid?

HAL: Maybe a little. CATHERINE: Fuck you, Hal. I know you have one of my notebooks. HAL: I think you should calm down and think about what you’re saying. CATHERINE: I’m saying you’re lying to me and stealing my family’s property.

305 HAL: And I think that sounds paranoid. CATHERINE: Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean there isn’t something in that

backpack. HAL: You just said yourself there’s nothing up there. Didn’t you? CATHERINE: I—

310 HAL: Didn’t you say that? CATHERINE: Yes.

HAL: So what would I take? Right? Beat.

CATHERINE: You’re right.

HAL: Thank you. 315 CATHERINE: So you don’t need to come back.

HAL: (Sighs.) Please. Someone should know for sure whether— CATHERINE: I lived with him. I spent my life with him. I fed him. Talked

to him. Tried to listen when he talked. Talked to people who weren’t there . . . Watched him shuffling around like a ghost. A very smelly ghost. He was filthy. I had to make sure he bathed. My own father.

HAL: I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have . . . CATHERINE: After my mother died it was just me here. I tried to keep him happy

no matter what idiotic project he was doing. He used to read all day. He kept demanding more and more books. I took them out of the library by the carload. We had hundreds upstairs. Then I realized he wasn’t reading: he believed aliens were sending him messages through the Dewey decimal numbers on the library books. He was trying to work out the code.

320 HAL: What kind of messages?

CATHERINE: Beautiful mathematics. The most elegant proofs, perfect proofs, proofs like music.

HAL: Sounds good. CATHERINE: Plus fashion tips, knock-knock jokes—I mean it was nuts, okay? HAL: He was ill. It was a tragedy. CATHERINE: Later the writing phase: scribbling nineteen, twenty hours a day . . . I 325

ordered him a case of notebooks and he used every one. I dropped out of school . . . I’m glad he’s dead.

HAL: I understand why you’d feel that way. CATHERINE: Fuck you. HAL: You’re right. I can’t imagine dealing with that. It must have been awful. I

know you— CATHERINE: You don’t know me. I want to be alone. I don’t want him around. HAL: (confused) Him? I don’t— 330 CATHERINE: You. I don’t want you here. HAL: Why? CATHERINE: He’s dead. HAL: But I’m not— CATHERINE: He’s dead; I don’t need any protégés around. 335 HAL: There will be others. CATHERINE: What? HAL: You think I’m the only one? People are already working over his stuff.

Someone’s gonna read those notebooks. CATHERINE: I’ll do it. HAL: No, you— 340 CATHERINE: He’s my father, I’ll do it. HAL: You can’t. CATHERINE: Why not? HAL: You don’t have the math. It’s all just squiggles on a page. You wouldn’t know

the good stuff from the junk. CATHERINE: It’s all junk. 345 HAL: If it’s not we can’t afford to miss any through carelessness. CATHERINE: I know mathematics. HAL: If there was anything up there it would be pretty high-order. It would take a

professional to recognize it. CATHERINE: I think I could recognize it. HAL: (Patient) Cathy . . . 350 CATHERINE: What? HAL: I know your dad taught you some basic stuff, but come on. CATHERINE: You don’t think I could do it. HAL: I’m sorry: I know that you couldn’t. (Beat. Catherine snatches his backpack.)

Hey! Oh come on. Give me a break. (Catherine opens the backpack and rifles through it.) This isn’t an airport.

Catherine removes items one by one. A water bottle. Some workout clothes. An orange. Drumsticks. Nothing else. She puts everything back in and gives it back. Beat.

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355 CATHERINE: You can come tomorrow.

Beat. They are both embarrassed.

HAL: The university health service is uh very good. My mom died a couple years ago and I was pretty broken up. Also my work

wasn’t going that well . . . I went over and talked to this doctor. I saw her for a

couple months and it really helped. CATHERINE: I’m fine.

Beat.

HAL: Also exercise is great. I run along the lake a couple of mornings a week. It’s not too cold yet. If you wanted to come sometime I could pick you up. We wouldn’t have to talk . . .

CATHERINE: No thanks. 360 HAL: All right. I’m gonna be late for the show. I better go.

CATHERINE: Okay.

Beat.

HAL: It’s seriously like twenty minutes up to the club. We go on, we play, we’re ter- rible but we buy everyone drinks afterward to make up for it. You’re home by four, four-thirty, tops . . .

CATHERINE: Good night.

HAL: Good night. (He starts to exit. He has forgotten his jacket.) 365 CATHERINE: Wait, your coat.

HAL: No, you don’t have to— Catherine picks up his jacket. As she does, a composition book that was folded up in the coat

falls to the floor. Beat. She picks it up, trembling with rage.

CATHERINE: I’m paranoid? HAL: Wait. CATHERINE: You think I should go jogging?

370 HAL: Just hold on. CATHERINE: Get out!

HAL: Can I please just— CATHERINE: Get the fuck out of my house. HAL: Listen to me for a minute.

375 CATHERINE: (Waving the book) You stole this! HAL: Let me explain!

CATHERINE: You stole it from me, you stole it from my father— Hal snatches the book.

HAL: I want to show you something. Will you calm down?

CATHERINE: Give it back. 380 HAL: Just wait a minute.

CATHERINE: I’m calling the police. (She picks up the phone and dials.)