How I Learned to Drive

Li’l Bit is the central character of the play. She frequently has monologues in which she sets up or explains the scenes that follow. Telling her story in flashbacks, she demonstrates to the audience how she “learned to drive,” a metaphor for her learning not only about sex but also about what it means to be a woman in this world.  

Li’l Bit’s nickname is a reference to her genitalia when she was an infant. The fact that we never learn her real name demonstrates how she is often reduced to her physicality and objectified by those around her. That the name is diminutive suggests her lack of power, and also that she is, to many of those around her, worth no more than her body. Li’l Bit is described in an early stage direction as “well-endowed” (9), and her large breasts are the subject of agonizing family dinner conversations. Li’l Bit is often teased in school for her breasts and in fact is sexually assaulted by a boy in middle school. From an early age, Li’l Bit recognizes that her breasts make men more interested in her, claiming “they’re sending out these signals to men who get mesmerized, like sirens” (38). The attention makes her “self-conscious” (37), and she shrinks from the gazes of boys and from the malicious teasing of girls.