Özet:

Li’l Bit is the main character of Paula Vogel’s play How I Learned to Drive (1997). The audience witnesses in this play the formation of the female identity mainly in sexual terms. In other words, Li’l Bit forms her identity as a female through her growing body since the age of eleven. Her family mocks her growing body. There are sexual taunts made by her peers in the school as well. As Li’l Bit enters puberty, she is recognized in the school only because of her large breasts. Li’l Bit feels alienated from her body. Thus, family, culture, society, and school’s abuse of her body participates in forming her identity. Vogel is expressing a public issue here about female identity formation. It is a process that is affected by various outer factors that shape Li’l Bit or any woman’s identity. Although the female sexual identity defines a woman, she is not the one who defines it. The world around her defines her identity.

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