The Hitchhiker

“ADAMS: My name is Ronald Adams. I am thirty-six years of age, unmarried, tall, dark, with a black mustache. I drive a 1940 Ford V-8, license number 6V-7989. I was born in Brooklyn. All this I know. I know that I am at this moment perfectly sane. That it is not I, who has gone mad—but something else—something utterly beyond my control.”

Fletcher establishes Adams as a widely relatable everyman character while foreshadowing the coming conflict of the play. Adams’s frantic reassurance that he is sane sows the seeds of doubt about his reliability as a narrator.

“ADAMS: But I must speak quickly. At any minute the link with life may break. This may be the last thing I ever tell on earth...the last night I ever see the stars...”

This line foreshadows the eventual reveal that Adams is dead by the time he recites his opening monologue and clues the listener in to the fact that he is in a liminal state. He is experiencing a reality beyond the everyday.

“MOTHER: I know. But you’ll be careful, won’t you. Promise me you’ll be extra careful. Don’t fall asleep—or drive fast—or pick up any strangers on the road…”

Fletcher uses foreshadowing often, and this quote specifically hints at Adams’s upcoming death in a car accident and his following encounters with the play’s antagonist, the odd hitchhiker.