Brighton Beach Memoirs

Act 1

Brighton Beach Memoirs

In the first act of Brighton Beach Memoirs, Eugene Morris Jerome is a fourteen year old boy that doesn’t really have a lot of friends. A lot of times, he would be outside playing a little imaginary baseball game by himself. When Eugene gets older he wants to either become a professional ball player for the Yankees or he wants to be a writer. As the book unfolds, he begins to reach the stage in puberty where he doesn’t know what he likes yet. At one point, he was starting to feel attracted to his cousin. Eugene’s mind doesn’t know what it wants yet.

In the story, gender roles are widely expressed. Today’s roles are totally different from how they were in the 1930s and 40s. In the 30s, only the man of the family worked while the mother stayed at home and cleaned and took care of the children. Today, both the wife and husband work which reduces the chances of a family having financial problems. The picture to the left is an example on how Eugene’s mother Kate would cook for her husband Jack.

With Eugene living in the house with his six other family members (Mom, Dad, Brother, Aunt, and two Cousins), there are gender roles that are shown as they interact with each other in the household. On page seventeen, “We’ll leave it up to Uncle Jack. We’ll let him make the decision.” said by Aunt Blanche. This shows how the men are basically the head of the family when it comes to making all the decisions. Another example was on page three when Kate and Blanche were being introduced, “Kate Jerome, is setting the table. Her sister Blanche is working at the sewing machine.” This shows how their roles will be throughout the book.