38 pages • 1 hour read
Tomson HighwayThe Rez Sisters
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1986A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Act II, Pages 88-100Act Summaries & Analyses
Act II, Pages 88-100 Summary
The women all get out of the van and look at the flat tire. They argue, and work on changing the tire. Zhaboonigan has to pee, so Marie-Adele takes her off to the side. Nanabush comes to them, and Marie-Adele has a breakdown yelling at Nanabush in his nighthawk disguise. Zhaboonigan tries to scare Nanabush off, but he knocks her down. She regresses into counting and naming. The other women come to help, and get Marie-Adele and Zhaboonigan back in the van.
Emily is designated as the driver. As she drives them toward Toronto, Marie-Adele confesses that her cancer has taken away her ability to be intimate with her husband. Pelajia tells her about a couple where one partner was dying and they were angry at each other, comparing them to Eugene and Marie-Adele. Emily tells them about a woman in her motorcycle gang, Rose, who discussed the issues in the Indigenous community and had trouble with drugs. After a fight, the motorcycle gang cruised down PCH; Rose stayed in the middle of the road, allowing a truck to hit her. Emily rode off alone after that. She confesses that Rose was her lover and Emily does not want to go back where Rose died, and so she came back to the reserve. Marie-Adele comforts Emily. Once calmed, Emily puts in her headphones and sings along.
Zhaboonigan irritates Emily, and they play “slap.” When it gets out of hand, Emily insults Zhaboonigan, using a derogatory term for someone who has an intellectual disability. Zhaboonigan hits Emily in the stomach. Emily apologizes, and Zhaboonigan does as well. Emily asks her if she wants kids, and warns her about men, swearing. Zhaboonigan repeats the profanity, Emily tries to shush her, but Zhaboonigan repeats it. When she calms down, Emily tells Zhaboonigan to stay near her in Toronto. She will help Zhaboonigan, as her sister. They high five and yell bingo.
Act II, Pages 88-100 Analysis
The theme of the trickster’s role in the lives of the dying and ill is developed when the van experiences a flat tire. While repairs are being done, Marie-Adele takes Zhaboonigan to use the restroom on the side of the road. There, apart from the others, the women are taunted by Nanabush. This time, he wears a nighthawk disguise, and “begins attacking” Marie-Adele and “knocks down” Zhaboonigan (92-93). They have different reactions, however. Marie-Adele is confrontational and yells at Nanabush, while Zhaboonigan retreats into herself, counting and reciting the names of her abusers (93). Marie-Adele’s reaction to Nanabush represents how she is not ready to die, building upon her previous discussion with Annie and foreshadowing her death later in the play.
Death is also familiar to Emily, who does not see or interact with Nanabush. The fact that her dead lover from San Francisco was a woman named “Rosabella Baez” (97) designates Emily as someone who is between worlds. This confession means that Emily has had lovers of more than one gender. While Marie-Adele straddles the worlds of the living and the dead, Emily is between the straight and gay worlds as a bisexual, introducing a greater sense of identity as a spectrum rather than a binary into the play. Shortly after this confession, Emily asks Zhaboonigan if she wants kids. This question foreshadows that Emily is pregnant with Big Joey’s baby, which is revealed near the end of the play.
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By Tomson Highway
