this proves furthermore that Bennett is trying to get the audience to feel for Muriel as she is desperately trying to forget Ralph’s death. She is constantly trying to think of ways to take her mind off Ralph and his death.
Further evidence to show Muriel feels unhappy about her position but tries to hide it are very good ways in which Bennett drops ‘hints’ of how she reminisces over Ralph. These are very subtle but when looking between the lines you see just how truly miserable Muriel is below the surface,
‘My Shoeshine Lady’
Being what Muriel used to be called by Ralph it did not seem important to her at the time but when looking back we are seeing just how something very irrelevant can mean all that much more as a memory.
We begin to realise as we get further through the monologue that Muriel was the housewife when Ralph was alive and cooked meals for him while he ‘brought home the bacon’ as a typical stereotypical housewife would be expected to. Bennett makes the audience think that Muriel’s whole life was based around Ralph. Without him she is unimportant and an irrelevant person after his death; almost as thought she was only known to some as Ralph’s wife and not a mention of Muriel. As we near the end of the second section of the monologue we see more evidence about Muriel and her relationship with Ralph. We can see just how devastated Muriel is put across by Bennett through two simple words;
‘Oh Ralph.’
As an audience we see through the beginning of the first two sections Bennett is giving us an opinion through Muriel of Giles. He wants the audience to think Giles is a nice person and Muriel is very proud of him and glad to ‘show off’ with him and about what he has achieved in life. He has a wife and good job and provided Muriel with grandchildren. Giles is seen as being the perfect son, who is helping his mother at her time of need,
‘He’d cancelled all of his appointments’
which makes the audience think he wants to make Muriel, his mother, feel under less pressure especially when it is said,
‘he suddenly thought I might need cheering up.’
Bennett is hinting that Giles is a very helpful and very much the role model son of any mother in the same situation. Muriel thinks this as well,
‘Bless him.’
The audience tend to feel a liking towards Giles.
We also see how nice Giles is at the funeral of Ralph in helping with the arrangements and having his children run around with drinks for everyone. Muriel describes Giles children as ‘angelic’. Giles takes Muriel out for a meal which is said to be ‘rather swish’ where he takes advantage of her in the eyes of the audience when he gets Muriel to sign a lot of papers,
‘It turns out Ralph has left me very nicely off.’
‘I’m quite a rich lady’
We don’t yet know what these papers are that she is signing off until further into the monologue. Giles explains, with regards to the financial state Muriel is in, in very technical and complicated language;
‘Liquidity Problem’
which are words only people who know what they are talking about will understand, therefore excluding Muriel.
Giles took pictures for keeping lowering the ‘figure’ that the revenue gives out. This is said to make Muriel feel ‘shifty’ and the impression on the audience is along the same lines. Muriel, though, trusts her son;
‘then back they come.’
She expects these items to be returned to her. The audience sees this as Muriel seeming to be deluded and can’t see through the things Giles is doing. He is sneaky and using Muriel to get to her belongings. Bennett makes Muriel out to be very naïve towards all of what is going on around her, almost as if there are ‘two worlds’ and she does not expect to be taken advantage of by her son.
Bennett makes the audience feel as though Margaret does not fit in as she is described to ‘plunge’ into a room and is awkward in the way she holds herself. She is seen to be imperfect. Muriel’s relationship with Margaret at the start of the monologue is not one which is very strong. Muriel treats her like a child. She refers to Ralph as ‘Daddy’ rather then Margaret’s father. The audience feels as though Margaret could possibly be a little slow for her age. She returns how she is spoken to by acting like a child in return and asking child – like questions;
‘Why? Is he dead? Who killed him?’
Although Margaret is spoken to like this further evidence to show why the audience may think she is slow.
Muriel is shown to feel almost embarrassed of Margaret. She did not like the relationship between Margaret and Ralph which may have some sort of reflection as to why she feels this way about her daughter. Muriel wants to stop feeling embarrassed because of Margaret’s action;
‘Come along and we’ll find you a tablet’
This makes Margaret sleep much to Muriel’s relief but not solving her problem for very long.
As we see Margaret in the second section of the monologue the audience are made to think she is a burden on the family and brings shame to them through the way she acts etc;
‘with her bag packed and her outside coat on, and for some reason Wellington boats. Said the police were coming.’
Margaret is not very graceful in the way she carries herself, she is described to ‘slump’ and ‘plonk’. Muriel did not like the relationship that Ralph had with Margaret which shows through in the amount of money that was left for her in his will. The audience is almost suspicious of this which is how Bennett wants them to think. Why was Muriel not comfortable with their relationship?
‘tied up so tight not even Giles could get his hands on it’
With causes some suspicion about this father daughter relationship, why were they so close? The audience starts to question the relationship.
As we move through into section three and four we start to get more of an insight into what Muriel is like with regards to her family and her personality. Muriel is very dignified and wants to keep a presentable front when people are coming into her home and taking her possessions. People start to strip her of her things resulting in her being much undignified and the audience feels sorry for her. Muriel begins to realise what her family is really like and begins to realise what Giles has done to hurt her and take the things that are lawfully hers. The audience feel for Muriel as everything that has been brought onto her has not been her fault. Muriel sees the people in her house taking things away as something she ‘has to do’;
‘I won’t be sorry to see it go’
But this is only a front so as people will not feel sorry for her. She wants to keep her self respect and pride. She does not want anyone’s sympathy. The people who are rooting through all the different things in her house are described to be;
‘trooping through the house’
And so Bennett is making is seem like a negative thing which affects the thought of the audience, it makes them think that the people are judging Muriel on things in her home and treating them like they are not very valuable. They probably aren’t but they are priceless in Muriel’s eyes. And again the audience feels sympathetic towards Muriel as she has not brought this on herself.
With regards to the attitude Muriel has towards her husband she is letting little hints that he may not be all he was to the people outside of the family who did not know the family very well. The audience starts to suspect Ralph as they start to see how there is hints from Bennett towards how her treated Margaret. This in turn reveals to have an effect on the way Muriel talks about Ralph. Bennett drops hints that Margaret was abused by Ralph which brings together a totally different view of the family and how Muriel talks about Ralph. When we look back into the last two sections we see the phrase;
‘Daddy’s little girl’
this is indeed a play on words and turns from something very innocent to something quite serious. We suspect Ralph of mistreating Ralph.
This point brings me to comment on Muriel’s relationship with Margaret in section three and four. Margaret has came a long way since the last few sections, she was put in a hospital which is a public hospital rather than a private one which is what she would have been put in if Ralph was alive, this could be due to him feeling sorry for what he did to her as a child.
Margaret starts to show signs of getting better as Muriel starts to go into the hospital and spend time with her daughter,
So I got cracking and showed her the whys and wherefores and actually ended up making both handles.’
This is showing a bit more of the typical mother – daughter bonding that is normally expected. Muriel could perhaps feel guilty for having let her daughter get abused under her roof knowing about it and not doing anything to help. Now it is too late to confront her and she could be trying to, in a way, ‘make it up to her’ and all the time they missed out on their bonding experiences. This is showing just how dependant Margaret is on others around her to keep her sane and even ‘alive’ in the real world. She would otherwise waste away in hospital.
Margaret has been to see a psychiatrist in the end of section four and although he does not know what has happened within the family with Ralph he has a pretty good guess as to why Margaret is the way she is. Muriel sees this subject as being very fragile and describes the psychiatrist;
’14 year old’
To almost patronise him and block out what really happened with her daughter. She acts as though he ‘doesn’t know what he is talking about’ even though she is worried that he knows. This is making the audience question why she hid it for so long knowing it was to protect her family. If Muriel was to mention to anyone what Ralph, her husband, had done she would have lost everything. Earlier I described that Ralph was her ‘everything’ due to people knowing of Muriel as Ralph’s wife. She could not take that risk to tell anyone about it, feeling guilty as now her daughter is suffering and her relationship with her is starting to blossom.
In section three we see the real side to Giles as an audience. Bennett is starting to drop hints he has conned his mother into signing over a lot of her money to him. He has taken advantage of Muriel’s nature. Muriel seems more deluded than she did in the first two sections of the monologue as she cannot and does not want to see that she has been used by her own son. Giles again brings up excuses for lack of money when Muriel asks questions, the only answer ‘liquidity thing’. Muriel becomes suspicious but only shows it in a hint Bennett provides us with;
‘It’s funny I never heard Ralph mention it’
This shows the audience that Muriel is starting to doubt her son but shows she does not want to and puts it down to Ralph not mentioning it rather than her own son playing her for a fool. Giles almost seems to be jealous of how Margaret was the favourite over him with regards to Ralph. Bennett is suggesting that Giles wants to get his own back by conning Muriel and trying to get hold of money Margaret has received off her Father.
Muriel is starting to come to terms with what Giles is really like at the end of section four. She explains that he is a ‘scamp’ and puts his actions down to him not being ‘very bright’. Giles had been very sneaky and Muriel responds;
‘it’s not all gloom’
and tries to make something devastating into something almost positive. Muriel seems to never want to crack and won’t face up to the truth about her family and what Giles has done to he and even about what her own husband did to her daughter.
As we get to the end of the monologue we see how the whole family turns out with regards to the outcome of Ralph’s death financially and how they are in themselves ands in their personalities. At this stage we see that Muriel has lost everything in her life, her money, her husband, her house and possessions. When she is talking to us as an audience she begins to talk about Ralph and quickly begins to change the subject so wanting to again not face up to the truth and be false towards her life. She does not want to face up to things. Muriel begins to be thankful for the little things in life as she sits with a walkman which is quite sad towards the audience as she used to have so much before her husband’s death. She blames herself for a lot of what happens and thinks that because she spent a lot of her time with Giles as he was her favourite child that she drove Ralph to Margaret. This of course to the audience is not true but Bennett is presenting Muriel to be very deluded;
‘I’m not a tragic woman’
This statement of which the audience knows is not true and feels frustrated that Muriel cannot see this.
Margaret has become accepted by Muriel since she has ‘slimmed down’ and their relationship has blossomed. Margaret talks about how she
‘Doesn’t blame Him’
talking of Ralph. Muriel at this point trails off, letting the audience know what Margaret was talking about and she does not want to face up to it. Margaret’s life had fallen apart since the way Ralph treated her as a child. Her life fell apart and Muriel feels guilty for that and now their relationship is becoming better as the guilt makes it’s way into Muriel’s conscience mind and wants to make it up to her daughter.
Giles has completely changed in the eyes of the audience from the start of the monologue to how we perceive him in the end section. He does not see much of Muriel anymore which suggests he got what he wanted to the audience and then has left her in his mess. Giles also could be feeling guilty for what he did although this is unlikely as he went through with ruining his mother.
To conclude, this monologue develops the audience’s response to the Muriel and her family in a lot of different ways throughout. Bennett has made the audience jump to conclusions, think opposite things about people who turn out quite nasty and rather cruel. The audience’s response to this monologue is one of great confusion over the aspect of what Ralph did exactly to Muriel and sheer discontentment towards other family members. But happiness towards the relationship that was once invisible to that of a very strong bond.