What is the play, A Cream Cracker Under the Settee, about and how does it work as a drama?

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Coursework Assignment

Post-1914 Drama

What is the play, A Cream Cracker Under the Settee, about and how does it work as a drama?

     I have been studying a twentieth century drama called ‘A Cream Cracker Under the Settee.’ It was written by Alan Bennett and appeared in the BBC1 series ‘Talking Heads.’ It has been written in the form of a tragi-comedy monologue where the juxtaposition of humour and pathos reflects real life.

     In this drama an elderly woman named Doris reveals her thoughts, feelings and past experiences to the audience. Doris is an elderly woman of 75, who lives alone and appears isolated from any form of socialising. The social services advise her to go into a retirement home called Stafford House as her independence is becoming limited but Doris persists that she wants to stay in her own home. Throughout the monologue Doris expresses her emotions as she reminisces about different periods in her lifetime. Her lonely and dedicated life draws to an end as a dreadful accident compels her to make the decision to die in her own surroundings rather than getting medical attention.

      The issue of loneliness appears to the audience to be quite a strong theme in the drama. All of the nostalgic thoughts that Doris accumulates are based on the fact that she is lonely and too immobile to have an active life.

     Doris became secluded after her husband, Wilfred, passed away and she was left in their house alone. The author shows Doris’ isolation and loneliness by using conversations between her and a photograph of her late husband. On numerous occasions Doris turns to the photo as a friend in which she confides her thoughts and feelings. Just after the incident where Doris injures her leg she looks down at the photo and proclaims, ‘Cracked the photo. We’re cracked, Wilfred.’ This shows the audience how Doris always imagines Wilfred to be with her and that she has nobody else to talk to.

     The issue of loss and death in this drama is somewhat emotional for the audience. The way the author writes makes you feel involved with the characters and able to imagine what they are going through. As Doris reviews her life, we realise that she has had quite a few traumatic experiences.

     Doris talks about the difficult period in her life when she gave birth to a stillborn baby. Doris confesses, ‘I wanted him called John. The midwife said he wasn’t fit to be called anything and had we any newspaper?’ This nostalgia, where Doris is looking back, gets her deep in thought. Doris explains that, ‘If it had lived, I might have had grandchildren now.’ The audience can tell from this how she thinks about what her life might have been like if her child would have survived. Doris gets very upset when she says, ‘Wrapping him in newspaper as if he was dirty. He wasn’t dirty, little thing.’ The audience sympathise with her here, trying to understand what she went through.

     Doris also talks a little about her late husband, Wilfred. The audiences acknowledge that Wilfred has died from the way Doris speaks of him when she says, ‘Well he’s got a minute now, bless him.’

     Doris’ life has been destroyed through loss and death on different occasions, which is why she is so lonely and isolated from people now.

     In the drama Doris refers to a lot of conflict that has occurred in her existence. She talks about the disputes that she’s had with certain people and the antagonistic thoughts that go on within her own mind.

     Doris discusses her conflicts involving her home help, Zulema. Doris’ interpretation of her is very negative. She informs the audience about how, ‘Zulema doesn’t dust. She half dusts,’ and exclaims, ‘I know when a place isn’t clean.’ On one occasion Doris complains, ‘She’s not half done this place’ and infers that she’s more trouble than she’s worth in the statement, ‘Home help. Home hindrance.’

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     Doris recalls all of the conflict that went on between her and her late husband, Wilfred. He used to conjure up imaginative ideas that Doris would disagree with. They argued over the garden, Wilfred’s ideas of pretty surroundings were destroyed when Doris admitted, ‘Given a choice, Wilfred, I’d have preferred concrete.’ They debated about getting a dog as Doris said, ‘Hairs all up and down, then having to take it outside every five minutes.’ Conflict also grew within Doris after she had given birth to the stillborn baby, she explained, ‘I don’t think Wilfred minded. A kiddy. It ...

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