In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play)

When Catherine cannot produce enough milk to feed her baby, her husband treats the issue as an unemotional medical problem that is easily solved by hiring a wet nurse. Catherine, however, sees the problem as a personal failure in her abilities as a mother. Catherine feels obligated to be a good mother as an essential part of her gender identity. She ascribes emotional significance to breastfeeding and believes that the act of feeding her baby is how the child learns to love her as a mother. While the only real requirement for a wet nurse is a healthy milk supply, Catherine has reservations about allowing a stranger to feed her baby because she believes that the child absorbs her morality while breastfeeding. Twice in the play, Dr. Givings says that Catherine’s milk supply isn’t adequate, a phrase that Catherine internalizes and then throws back at her husband when he refuses to kiss her and bring her to orgasm at the same time.

Mr. Daldry offers Elizabeth’s services as a wet nurse without consulting her, and Elizabeth’s reluctant acquiescence to feed Catherine’s baby demonstrates that even after the Civil War and emancipation, a black woman’s body is not her own.