The Importance of a Purpose Driven Life in Morris Panych’s 7 Stories (Essay Sample )

Morris Panych’s 7 Stories is a comedic play published in 1990 whose main focal point is the importance of a purpose driven life. In the play, an unnamed man is standing on the seventh floor ledge of a building and is contemplating jumping to his own demise. By consequence, he finds himself contemplating life itself and its endless restrictions. Meanwhile, the neighbouring windows are teeming with eccentric individuals, each too caught up in their own lives to pay any attention to the man or his purpose before them. However, it is from every one of his interactions with these characters that allows the man’s perception of the world around him to evolve. At the start of the play, the man appears to have lost all hope and finds no meaning in his life. He feels as though he is condemned to a life that is absent of motivation and that he is simply following a continual and tiresome routine. Yet by the end of the play, he comes to realize that life’s purpose must come from within and that one must not let the apparent limitations of the world be a hindrance on your outlook and your future. 

Although Panych’s play makes the argument that a purpose driven life is essential, he also indicates that the vast majority of humanity is leading an aimless and pointless existence. He highlights how many are forcing themselves to avoid this reality by living out extremes in order to feel alive. One example of this is with the characters Charlotte and Rodney. Both are deeply unhappy with their lives and try to push this away by seeking out each other in an extramarital affair. At one point, Charlotte even begins “cheating on the man [she is] cheating with” (Panych, 13) so as to escape her monotonous life. Yet this still is not enough and their affair begins to feel “dreary [and] mindless” (Panych, 13). Once more, they push the boundaries by frequently “trying to kill each other” (Panych, 13) to gain a sense of power over their meaningless lives. Another example of this is with the characters Percy and Al. At the time of their introduction, they are at a house party hosted by Al. Through their interactions, it is evident that neither are truly satisfied in life. For instance, Percy constantly boasts that “as it is now, [he has]  nine hundred and forty” (Panych, 22) friends. One interpretation of this is that he feels the need to always have a distraction and thus, seeks out an absurd number of acquaintances. There can never be a moment where he is truly alone because then he would be left with his thoughts and to face the reality that his life is futile. This situation is quite similar to the one of Al’s. He constantly hosts parties even though he hates the people attending them. Every time, he finds excuses for the guests to leave. “At [his] last party, [he] had to start a fire in the kitchen to get rid of them” (Panych, 24). Similarly to Percy, Al doesn’t really enjoy his current relationships yet must keep them around to ease his dread. Afterall, loud blaring music and illicit substances are a perfect way to make one forget about their subpar situation. With these characters, Panych is emphasizing the importance of a purpose driven life. It is so crucial to have a driving force, otherwise one might end up in a situation not unlike these. These characters fill their lives with reckless and unstable structure because they simply cannot cope knowing that their life lacks this cardinal factor. 

Furthermore, Panych and his play are suggesting that it is precisely because life is so routine and tiresome that one must look within and move past its limitations to create a meaningful existence. One example of this is with the character Rachel. At one point, her life was quite distressing. She had “almost every disease imaginable”, she was “crippled … [and] bruised” and she was the primary caregiver of her “human vegetable” of a mother (Panych, 18). However, Rachel decides to take her life into her own hands and she gives her mother an “overdose of two thousand milligrams of diazepam” (Panych, 18). She disguises these acts as trials of God but it is not God who answered her prayers, it is herself. The morality of her actions are questionable but putting that aside, there is simply a woman whose life had no meaning or enjoyment until she took it upon herself to break free of life’s boundaries. Another example of this is with the character Marshall. His real name is actually Michael Merchant and he previously “act[ed] for a living” (Panych, 13). Marshall describes his past as a “second rate” actor whose “life seem[ed] unbearably preposterous” (Panych, 13). That is until he met his fiancée while still in costume from a previous play. She turned out to be quite wealthy, having a sum of  “a hundred and fifty million” dollars (Panych, 14). So Marshall decided to put on an act and become “exactly what she wanted” (Panych, 14). Although Marshall is deceiving this woman, and going to great lengths at that, he is doing so to find a sense of reason within his life. He could have done the noble thing and introduced his true self to this woman, but he decided instead to take action to improve his current state. In both of these cases, the characters are suffering in their lives and simply going through the motions. That is, until they take the initiative to escape the dismal and banal predicaments they find their lives becoming. Although their actions could be considered as deceitful and immoral, Panych suggests that the importance of a purpose driven life outweighs everything else. 

In conclusion, Panych and his play, 7 Stories, makes numerous suggestions about the importance of a purpose driven life. For one, he argues that everyone’s life is inherently without merriment and reason. This reality is too much to handle for some and they are forced to resort to unorthodox means to distract themselves. Panych highlights this point using the man’s interactions with characters such as Charlotte, Rodney, Percy and Al. Moreover, Panych argues that to be truly free of these negative sentiments life causes, one must break loose themselves and move past their own limitations. To do so, drastic measures must sometimes be taken, yet Panych suggests that this is permissible because of how important it is to live a purpose driven life. This idea is underlined in characters such as Marshall and Rachel. While on the roof, the man interacts with all of these characters and more. He starts off as desperate and trapped. That morning he realized that he could “run a million miles, in any direction, and still not escape” (Panych, 28). By that evening, he ends up on this building and is constantly interrupted by these peculiar individuals. Thus, at the end of the play, the man has realized these concepts and for a moment he forgets his “own story … and [he] flew … flew on the wings of someone else’s” (Panych, 31).