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The best study guide to Proof on the planet, from the creators of SparkNotes. Get the summaries, analysis, and quotes you need.
- Plot Summary Plot
Get all the key plot points of David Auburn's Proof on one...
- Summary & Analysis
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- Themes
David Auburn’s play Proof illustrates that there’s a fine...
- Quotes
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- Characters
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- Act Two, Scene 1
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- Genius and Mental Instability
David Auburn’s play Proof illustrates that there’s a fine...
- Family and Heredity
Throughout Proof, Catherine compares herself to late her...
- Catherine
Catherine is the quick-witted, stubborn, and prickly...
- Plot Summary Plot
- Plot Overview of "Proof"
- What Works in "proof"?
- A Weak Central Conflict
- A Poorly Conceived Romantic Lead
- Lackluster Romantic Storyline
Catherine, the twenty-something daughter of an esteemed mathematician, has just laid her father to rest. He died after suffering from a prolonged mental illness. Robert, her father, had once been a gifted, ground-breaking professor. But as he lost his sanity, he lost his ability to work coherently with numbers. The audience is quickly introduced to...
"Proof" works very well during the father-daughter scenes. Unfortunately, there are only a few of these flashbacks. When Catherine does converse with her father, these scenes reveal her often conflicting desires. We learn that Catherine's academic goals were thwarted by her responsibilities to her ailing father. Her creative urges were offset by he...
One of the major conflicts of the play is Catherine's inability to convince Hal and her sister that she actually invented the proof in her father's notebook. For a while, the audience is unsure as well. After all, Catherine's sanity is in question. Also, she has yet to graduate from college. And, to add one more layer of suspicion, the proof is wr...
There is another weakness in this play, the character Hal. This character is sometimes nerdy, sometimes romantic, sometimes charming. But for the most part, he's an unpleasant man. He's the most skeptical about Catherine's academic abilities, yet through most of the play, he never chooses to talk to her, even briefly, about math so as to determine ...
Most egregious in this drama is the half-hearted love story that seems tacked on and extraneous to the dramatic center. And perhaps it is more accurate to call it a lust story. During the second half of the play, Catherine's sister discovers that Hal and Catherine have been sleeping together. Their sexual relationship seems very casual. It's main f...
- Wade Bradford
Dive deep into David Auburn's Proof with extended analysis, commentary, and discussion
33 pages • 1 hour read. David Auburn. Proof. Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 2000. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. Download PDF. Access Full Guide. Generate discussion.
Lesson Plan for Proof. Proof study guide contains a biography of David Auburn, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.
