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Catherine's Sacrifice and Struggle

Catherine is a 25-year-old woman who inherited her father's mathematical genius. She cared for her father until his recent death, having dropped out of school to do so. Catherine lived with and cared for her father, who became unstable after her mother died. She tried to listen to him even when he talked to people who weren't there. After his death, Catherine is relieved but fears she may have also inherited his instability.

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Katherine Jarema
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159 views1 page

Catherine's Sacrifice and Struggle

Catherine is a 25-year-old woman who inherited her father's mathematical genius. She cared for her father until his recent death, having dropped out of school to do so. Catherine lived with and cared for her father, who became unstable after her mother died. She tried to listen to him even when he talked to people who weren't there. After his death, Catherine is relieved but fears she may have also inherited his instability.

Uploaded by

Katherine Jarema
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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'Proof' by David Auburn

Character: Catherine - A 25 year old woman who inherited much of her father's mathematical
genius, and, she fears, his "instability" as well.

Age Range: 20's

Summary: Catherine gave up her life and schooling to take care of her father until his recent death.

CATHERINE: I lived with him. I spent my life with him. I fed him. Talked to him. Tried to listen when
he talked. Talked to people who weren’t there . . . Watched him shuffling around like a ghost. A very
smelly ghost. He was filthy. I had to make sure he bathed. My own father . . .
After my mother died it was just me here. I tried to keep him happy no matter what idiotic project he
was doing. He used to read all day. He kept demanding more and more books. I took them out of the
library by the carload. We had hundreds upstairs. Then I realized he wasn’t reading: he believed
aliens were sending him messages through the Dewey decimal numbers on the library books. He
was trying to work out the code . . .

Beautiful mathematics. The most elegant proofs, perfect proofs, proofs like music . . .

Plus fashion tips, knock-knock jokes – I mean it was nuts, OK?

Later the writing phase: scribbling nineteen, twenty hours a day . . . I ordered him a case of
notebooks and he used every one.

I dropped out of school . . . I’m glad he’s dead.

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