Bug Play Analysis

1024 Words5 Pages

Bug, by Tracy Letts, is a dark mind altering thriller. Bug takes place in a run down sketchy motel room in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The play centers on Agnes who is a 44-year-old divorced waitress who is trying to hide out from her recently paroled abusive ex-husband Jerry, and the other main character Bug is Peter. Peter is a 27-year-old man who was in the Gulf War. It is unclear if Peter was discharged from the military, or if he went AWOL (Absent Without Official Leave). Peter appears to be quiet and reserved, however, Peter suffers from major paranoia. He believes that he has tiny bugs inside of him put there by the military. Her lesbian best friend, R.C, introduces Agnes to Peter. Agnes and R.C. both love to do cocaine and drink. …show more content…

Agnes punishes herself daily due to the fact that almost 10 years before, her six year old son, Lloyd, disappeared from a shopping cart while Agnes and him were grocery shopping. Agnes forgot an onion, so she went back to get one. Leaving Lloyd in the cart just steps away from her, Agnes turned her back on Lloyd to grab the onion. When Agnes turned back toward the cart, Lloyd was gone. She had always taught Lloyd not to talk to strangers or to go with them, so she had a hard time understanding how Lloyd could disappear. The sad fact of our society today, is that children can disappear that quickly, in a blink of an eye, without being detected. Though I believe Agnes being a victim of domestic violence does pay a part in her having a broken soul, I feel the majority of her pain and self-destruction comes from losing her son. Nothing in Bug indicates that Agnes was an abuser of cocaine, or a heavy drinker before her son went …show more content…

Peter’s paranoia is in full force. He has convinced Agnes that the military did all of this to him; they put the bugs in him when they conducted experiments on him, and now they are after him. The motel room is covered from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, with foil. Both Agnes and Peter are under the impression that the foil is the way to break up the frequency that the bugs are transmitting. Peter’s back tooth starts to bother him yet again; this is when Peter realizes that the military must have planted a bug in his tooth. So what does Peter do? Peter does the unthinkable and grabs a pair of pliers, goes into the bathroom, and yanks out his back tooth. Meanwhile, Agnes is standing there screaming and crying for him to stop. Peter is so out of his mind, that he leads Agnes to think that the only way to be free of the bug problem is to burn everything down. Bug’s shocking end, is Peter and Agnes standing bear naked, in the middle of the completely foiled motel room, having doused everything, including themselves, in gasoline, and finally a match is lit. The scene closes with seeing the motel room engulfed in