Diary of a Mad Housewife

Diary of a Mad Housewife is set in the early 1970s New York, at a time when the role of women as worker/wife was unclear. The Women's Liberation Movement hasn't hit Bettina, however, who is deftly played by Carrie Snodgrass. A housewife whose idealistic lawyer husband has turned in to a materialistic social climber, Bettina finds herself on the verge of a nervous breakdown after a summer in the Hamptons. She struggles with her role as mother-housekeeper-wife as her husband becomes more demanding and distant, and she is constantly reminded of her 'duties' as a wife and mother. At yet another party with the mad social whirl of New York, Bettina meets George Prager, a writer whose ego is as large as Bettina's anxiety. As she works through a sexual affair with Prager, who is as verbally abusive as her husband, Bettina slowly begins to realize that she has allowed herself to be a pawn from both her lover and her husband. As her husband's facade begins to crack, she slowly gains strength and realizes that it is she that must carry the family; humor the husband so he feels better, raise her daughters to be ladies, batten down the hatches, and make things right. Bettina is a classic example of a woman searching for her identity, lost in the chorus of how 'lucky ' she is.