The text describes Martha as “a large boisterous woman, 52, looking somewhat younger. Ample, but not fleshy” (1). She is college-educated and intelligent, able to match wits with everyone present, but her dominating personality and headstrong nature have been liabilities rather than assets for her as a woman. Martha is hurt when George mocks her for “braying” (7) at the party, because she it is an attack on her femininity.

Martha’s father is the president of the university, and she loves and admires him as a powerful man, although George comments that he doesn’t really care about her. In a different time, Martha would have been her father’s heir apparent to eventually run the university, but as a woman in the early 1960s, the possibility doesn’t even come up. She decides to do the next best thing and marry someone who can become her father and is disappointed when George, who she did legitimately fall in love with, is not as driven as she is.

Martha tortures and emasculates George for his lackluster ambition and career. The illusion of their son has turned into a delusion for Martha, and she looks for her son’s affection and love in her husband and then Nick to legitimize herself as a woman.