The Children's Hour

Hellman's play sends her heroes on a wicked path of self discovery. This is seen primarily in Martha who realizes that Mary's lie is a truth. She does love Karen (she states she's never loved a man that way). The end of her journey is death- she cannot live with this self-knowledge. The knowledge has ruined Karen as well and her prospects with Cardin. These women are the victims of a virtual witch hunt. Martha's journey is changed when her love is given a name and a different meaning that she was at first willing to acknowledge.

Religion's role in this play has to do with traditional biblical attitudes toward homosexuality. It is sin, deviant sexual behavior. At the time of this play, 1934, the community surrounding the school (parents, faculty and staff) would have held this view. Martha's guilt comes out of this traditional understanding. She cannot live an outsider in this community. This sin is a biggie in the church - people of this religious community can overlook their own sins of pride, slander and gossip because these are peanuts in comparison (although the Bible would condemn these as just as sinful and probably having greater repercussions to more people).

Karen and Martha's status as outsiders is forced upon them. And it happens during the action of the play when Mary tells her grandmother what she's 'overheared.' Parents withdraw their children from the school, Cardin withdraws from Karen - these women are ostracized. Karen is made to feel the shame of a sin she is not guilty of, but Martha feels the greater sense of being outside - unlike Karen, she does posess these feelings and while we assume she's never acted on them (she's never even verbalized them) she cannot even relate to being unjustly accused. She is now cut off from Karen whom she cannot love. For her, death is better than isolation.