Muriel's Wedding

Muriel’s Wedding (1995), written by P.J. Hogan, explores the central notion of relationships. Relationships can be defined as the connection between people and others, and it is these relationships that allow an individual to find and/or reaffirm their identities. More specifically, Hogan conveys that individuals will always seek out others who they can form positive relationships with, which in turn can reaffirm their sense of identity. He also portrays that the outcome of a relationship is not always what individuals expect when they initiate them, and social labels such as marriage may fail our expectations and do not always indicate the true nature of a relationships.
In Muriel’s Wedding, Hogan successfully discusses that when individuals are positioned in an environment with others whose values are not concordant with their own, they will seek out relationships with others who can support them and can thus reaffirm their sense of identity. In the beginning of the play, Muriel is still in search of her identity, thus attempting to make friends with Tania and her group of friends as a testing ground. Although the negative statements “We don’t want you hanging around us anymore” and “you bring us down Muriel” convey how Tania’s group feel that Muriel does not belong in their group after all, Muriel does not want to be left alone. She thus steals money from her family to go on a holiday in order to reconcile with Tania’s group of friends in an attempt to prove her worth. Even so, Muriel finds no place to stay inside Tania’s social circle but she meets Ronda on the holiday who supports her and catalyses her solidity in self-belief as evidenced by “You’re not nothing, Muriel. You’re amazing… Now you’re a success… you’ve made it”. This example exemplifies how the nature of the relationship between Muriel and Ronda helps Muriel reaffirm their sense of identity because of the mutual support of each other. Thus Hogan shows us that bad relationships can make excluded