How does Bennett develop the audience's response to Muriel and her family in 'Soldiering on'?

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Gemma Thompson        11JKE        English Lit: 20th Century drama

Literature: Twentieth Century Drama

‘Soldiering On’ by Alan Bennett

How does Bennett develop the audience’s response to Muriel and her family in ‘Soldiering on’?

        For this piece of coursework I am going to present how Bennett develops the relationships between Muriel and her other family members. I will include how Bennett drops hints about the family and how these hints make the audience respond.

        At the beginning of the monologue we are introduced to Muriel and we see what her personality is like and how she looks upon her day to day life. We get the impression that although Muriel has lost her husband he has left her well off. We see in the introduction of the section that Muriel is described as a ‘brisk, sensible woman’ by Bennett, possibly wanting to make a point of how she was in the beginning near to when her husband died compared with how she is nearing the end and how her presents Muriel. We also are told what she is wearing;

‘She is in a tweed skirt and cardigan with some pearls.’

She has been brought into wealth and is going to be prosperous after Ralph’s death. Muriel is also said to be ‘settled’ in her ‘comfortable home.’ This tells the reader that money is not a worry for the future for Muriel as she has been left with a lot, including the house.

As an audience we are made to think that Muriel is keeping herself busy and trying to take her mind off her husband’s death. She does not seem to want to show her emotions and even puts on a brave front for other people so they don’t sympathise with her. We see Muriel as being reasonably happy, considering having just lost Ralph. This is exactly how Bennett wants the audience to see her.

She is getting ready for a wake but does not want to make much of an effort with regards to what she will take as food;

‘Muriel, old girl, that’s the coward’s way out,’

this is where we see Bennett already building on the fact that Muriel is going to keep a ‘stiff upper lip’ and be bravely living on her own without Ralph. Muriel likes to keep herself busy as we can see nearing the end of section two;

‘I’d thought I’d go into the library’

but in keeping herself busy she is still reminiscing about Ralph, even though she doesn’t show in herself it shows in her actions; ‘find me something on bereavement’ referring to a leaflet to see how to cope, it shows a weak side of Muriel where she ‘slips up’ when trying to keep her head held high and confidently show she is strong.

        To wrap up how Muriel seemed to be in the first few sections we like her. The audience likes how devoted she was to her husband and how she is trying to hide her feelings of devastation. We feel sorry for her and that in itself has created the effect Bennett wanted from his audience.

        Muriel and Ralph are seen to have been very close due to how Muriel presents him to the audience in the beginnings two sections of Bennett’s monologue. The audience are made to like Ralph as a person in these first two sections. He is known as a friend to many different people and looked after his wife well. Upon Bennett introducing him into the monologue the first section tells us;

‘There were one or two brave souls, who’d trekked all the way from Wolverhampton,’

this shows the audience that Ralph was a popular, well known and liked man with many friends.

        We can see that Muriel was definitely close with her deceased husband

‘Whenever I saw anyone looking lost I thought of Ralph and grabbed hold of someone I did know and breezed up,’

Join now!

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 ...

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