Host of the Party on Riverside Drive

Character Analysis

Of the three men who hit on Janet during the party on Riverside Drive, the Host is the most outwardly violent and aggressive.

After Janet and Joanna escape from the couch where Ewing has trapped them, the Host catches them as they're pulling their coats from the hall closet. Large and drunk, he looks to Joanna like "a giant marine" (3.2.159). He grabs Janet's wrist, puts his arms around her, puts his face up against her neck, and demands a goodbye kiss.

When she refuses, he wants to know if she's "some kinda prude" (3.2.160). When she tells him to let go, he squeezes her wrist, puckers his lips, and says "Make me, make me" as he swings "his hips from side to side suggestively" (3.2.162). When Janet pushes him away and he lands on the floor, he lets loose with a string of insults so vile that we can't even quote them here, and when Janet slaps him, he attacks her full-on.

Too bad for him that Janet isn't as meek and helpless as the other women he's known.