Let's Talk About Sally Draper

A while back i started watch the T.v show "Mad Men" and a lot of characters and their personalities stuck out to me (which I will be writing about more than just Sally). Sally represents the generation my own mother would of come from, we see her from a small child in a world that would never be perfect. She deals with the fractures of a broken home which causes her to lash out in many ways. Her biggest takeaway as a character is that she is an all seeing eye so to speak, while her parents marriage is falling apart she is the only one who refuses to be distracted and fall dormant to the fraudulent efforts of her parents in the public eye, constantly pointing out how hypocritical they can be.

Sally takes on many characteristics of both of her parents, from the violent tendencies of her own mother, to the pushing down emotions and manipulative actions of her father. Sally tends to shine as the most mature and adult like character in her family, often going as far as to comfort her parents during times of grief while taking care of both her siblings in more of a parental role.


Sally's acting out reflects that she hasn't been taught to cope in a healthy fashion, instead her behavior is more an erratic child like form of her parents actions, similar to Don's drinking habits and cheating.
She struggles as a character stuck between trying to keep her child like wonder and habits while being one of the only ones in her family even attempting to keep them all together, she is essentially their glue and thus is denied most of her own childhood. Born in 1954 she presents us with the generational gap of a society where her own mother wouldn't of had any freedom of her own, Sally's own mother during a decent amount of the show was afraid to even leave her husband to a point where she just tries to look the other way. While the generation Sally comes from doesn't accept such concepts and try to be more free and have more respect and less control over one another,





    She's a baby boomer, and through her we see the world that she has to deal with and the social turmoil of a post war society. She is always part of the first generation to be able to be raised with T.v. Due to this she gets exposed to major news coverage of the time for example JFK and Martin Luther King Jr. getting shot. she gets exposed so quickly to this and loses her veil on reality. In a way she isn't hidden from anything, and due to this and her own family splitting apart she has nowhere to run in her mind like her mother but instead has to face the harsh realities of the time.

Sally is a great character and her arcs are some of my favorite, growing up with her really makes you feel for her and understand why she does the things she does. I don't believe in entirely random actions, a lot of what she does represents how our own parents actions and habits can push children to lose out on their childhood and imagination too soon and even act out for attention. These habits you develop from your own parents who tend to not be well off and they continue through multiple generations.