Narrating, Witnessing, and Healing Trauma in Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive

Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive provides a case study in trauma and in the ways one might work through trauma to achieve "post-victim" status. Vogel refracts the story of sexual abuse through Li'l Bit, a narrator-protagonist who exercises control over her past experiences by dramaturgically manipulating them in the present performance. The key components that enable her adult control over her childhood trauma are forgiveness on her part (of both her Uncle Peck and herself) and witnessing on the audience's part. Li'l Bit's newfound ability to tell her story on her own terms and have that story witnessed in performance allows her to begin the healing process.