Interpreting The Truth In The Play Proof By David Auburn

Proof is a play by David Auburn. David Auburn is a forty-six year old man from Chicago and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play in 2001 for his play Proof. In the play there are four main characters. A a genius mathematician called Robert, who slowly becomes insanity by his late twenties. There is also his two daughters Claire and Catherine. The last main character is Harold, also known as Hal, Dobbs. Hal was a student of Robert's and now he teaches teaches at the College. The story starts a week after Robert’s passing. His daughter, Catherine has left College for the previous five years to take care for him. However, the other daughter, Claire has flown all the way to New York City, and has rarely cared for Robert.

Everyone is quite surprised since everyone thought Robert was not able to work for his left few years. However, Catherine confesses that she actually wrote the proof not Robert. This profound exclamation soon becomes the core struggle for the characters for the rest of the play. The audience will soon question, who actually has written the proof, and is Catherine telling the truth? The people's’ reactions and actions show varying ways to interpret what is trustworthy and what the actual truth is. Claire’s reaction is quite the most glaring. She does not believe what her sister is saying almost at all. She is suspicious of nearly everything Catherine says, and behaves like anything she says can not be believed. As Catherine says she has written the mathematical proof, Claire says to her, “It’s Dad’s handwriting... it looks exactly like it.”, even though Catherine exclaims that she did in fact wrote them. Claire demands quite a exorbitant level of evidence that is quite nearly infeasible for poor Catherine to please

This is visible as Catherine first states that the mathematical equation is her own. Catherine urges him to clarify that the writing is indeed hers. However, he comes up with excuses, stating, he is not a handwriting identifying professional, and also saying that he does not know what her handwriting looks like. She is upset by his indecisiveness and protests. Even for Hal, if she could make clear of the math, it still would not concretely prove it to him. He needed facts. She though tells, “He couldn’t have written it… he couldn’t work.” Even when the pieces are completely against Robert, Hal still needs more evidence before he can trust that Catherine did indeed write it. The reasons of Hal’s unsureness about her saying it is her proof, can be seen in his feelings. Hal is quite scared that Catherine’s proof would compromise his own fieldwork and would make him look more unimportant. Catherine soon recognizes this, and ferociously remarks that if she did write it, “it would be a real disaster for you.” Hal decides to have it looked at by his college co workers and explains that, “then we’ll have a lot more information.” Hal then nervously exclaims, “I’m trying to determine what this is”, but is bitten back by Catherine’s sharp response, “I’m telling you what this is!” It would seem that he would like to trust in Catherine story, but he would need to be completely convinced that it is real prior to trusting