The Birthday Party

“I’d much rather have a little boy.”

When Petey reads to Meg from the newspaper, she personalizes each item about the lives of strangers. The birth announcement for a baby girl leads Meg to respond with disappointment. The play makes no mention of whether Meg and Petey have ever had children, implying that they haven’t. Meg’s preference for a boy is reflected in how she has latched onto Stanley and, in her mind, turned him into a facsimile of both a son and a lover, suggesting her unmet desire to be both a mother and an attractive feminine figure.

“They just talk. […] You like a song eh, Meg?”

Petey mentions a show that is coming to town but tells Meg that it isn’t a musical. Meg doesn’t understand what the performers do and finds it disappointing that they just talk. Meg prefers music and the rhythm of music, as well as the cheerful sense of illusion that musicals can bring. This presents a meta-irony; the play in which these characters exist is “just talk,” but Meg creates romance and illusion to make her life more exciting and fulfilling than what it is.