Wendy Wasserstein's play Tender Offer is a dialogue between a father, Paul and his daughter, Lisa. Paul is too wrapped up in his business and work and never takes the time to talk to his daughter and find out what is going on in her life. When the play begins, Lisa and Paul do not seem to have a relationship at all, but we find in the end that their relationship changes and will be better in the future. This dialogue allows Paul and Lisa to share their feelings about each other for the first time, thus changing their relationship from dysfunctional to normal.The play begins with Lisa dancing around by herself in a dance studio waiting for her father to pick her up. When her father arriv ...view middle of the document...
He seems as though he could not be bothered with her and that he was not inter-ested in what she had to say. When she starts telling him about a movie she saw on tele-vision and he tells her that she is being maudlin. When she asks what maudlin means he says, "Sentimental, soppy. Frequently used by children who make things up to get atten-tion." (p.1304) Notice Paul's choice of words; they are a prime example of Paul's arro-gance. There is easily a much more pleasant way of stating his opinion. When Lisa real-izes that he wasn't interested in what she had to say, she then began to tell him that she had an itch on her leg and asked him to scratch it for her. Instead of being sympathetic for Lisa, Paul tells her that she is procrastinating. He tells her that he is really tired and wants to go home and eat dinner. She then says to him, "Why don't you want to talk to me?" He answers, "I do want to talk to you. I promise when we get home we'll have a nice talk." (p. 1305) Then later in the conversation he says, "Honey we'll talk on the weekend, I promise" (p. 1305) I f...
