Scene 1 Summary

Eleemosynary follows three generations of Westbrook women as they attempt to define their relationships with one another. Dorothea, her daughter Artie, and Artie's daughter Echo have great love for each other, but this familial love is very often tainted by bitterness, resentment, the need of Dorothea to control Artie, and the inability of Artie to show affection toward Echo.

Eleemosynary opens with Echo, the teenaged granddaughter of Dorothea, spelling out the title of the play. This foreshadows how significant the word and its meaning will ultimately become. This also reveals Echo's obsession with spelling words, which foreshadows the relationship between Echo and her mother.

At this point, Dorothea has had a stroke and been rendered mute, though sixteen-year-old Echo insists that she can still hear her grandmother speak. Dorothea's daughter and Echo's mother, Artie, enters wearing a pair of crudely fashioned wings. These...