Alongside pathos, humour is effectively conveyed in the opening of, “A Lady of Letters”. Irene complains when she discovers dog dirt on her “little ramp”. There are juxtapose ideas in this section of the monologue as Irene regards the ramp as “my monument that ramp”; she obviously feels it is of importance and feels proud that she was the one responsible for its being there. However, in actual fact we know that the council may have only put it there to humour her so they would not receive an abundant amount of letters from her. Irene is dismayed because when she passes her “monument” she finds “some dog had gone and done its business right in the middle of it”; we know that she should not be that bothered about it as the ramp is not really that important. This is humorous because her proud demeanour is broken down by Bennett as other people obviously have not been respectful of her ramp in which she is obviously self-righteous here. Irene also has written letters to the Queen about dog business outside of the palace, given to the Highways. Bennet displays irony in a humorous way at this point when the Highways sends Irene a letter thanking her for her thank you letter as she is angered, because she feels it is a waste of public resources, ironically writing to them scolding them for their reply, “Was this a typical use of public resources?”, then “They didn’t even bother to reply”. She contradicts herself comically.
In this monologue pathos and humour are combined very well; there is a strong theme of humorous irony and Irene’s lack of self-awareness. When police officers warn Irene about her incessant letter writing she lies to them and denies the accusation, “I don’t write letters”. When she is then offended by the police officer she goes on to contradict herself by saying, “I intend to write to you superintendent”. We are humoured by Irene as she is unaware of the inconsistency in her statement, which is very blatant. We then sympathise with Irene as she is out under pressure by the police questions but she still stay adamant in the fact she has done no wrong. She tries to turn the question back onto the police officers, “’Letters’ I said... I bet you write letters. He said ‘Not like you, love’ ‘we’re asking you because...’” The end of the section leads the audience to a huge mixture of shock and pathos as the police go on to reveal that, the child, who Irene was so convinced had been a victim of “Kiddy abuse”, had in fact died of Leukaemia. As we are only given one point of view we believe Irene’s assumptions and then when we find out she is in fact so wrong, we also feel guilty like Irene. Irene has made other nuisance complaints, which she most likely had been wrong about: accusing the chemist’s wife of adultery and the lollipop man of interfering with children. It is wrong for Irene to judge strangers from what she may see but she does not know the whole story as she does not socialise with them. Bennett may be suggesting that if out communities were closer, people like Irene would not be so prejudice and lonely.
Pathos is not forgotten as we are soon feeling pity for Irene after the anger we felt because of her wrong accusations. We know Irene is sorry for her actions as her face crumples when she learns of the kiddy’s fate. “I don’t want to be called Irene. I haven’t been Irene since mother died”; this brings our attention back to the fact Irene is still grieving for the loss of her mother, who she was obviously close to as she has not been the same person since. We feel sorry for Irene as she lost a very important member of her family and even at an older age it has affected her greatly and we can sympathise with her loss. Irene compare novels to life, “You never are happy and saying it doesn’t make a ha’porth of difference”...”This is it. This has been my go”, we can imagine this being said with a note of finality and Irene believes that her life is essentially over and writing letter was all she had left to offer. We pity Irene as she is not happy and she feels she will continue the rest of her life like this and will not turn it around as it is too late to do anything about her loneliness or situation. When in prison Irene meets a woman called Bridget who has had a tragic past and Irene sees past this to help the woman. “Dreaming about the kiddy she killed... I... Hold her hand till she’s off again”.. It is ironic as she was previously so prejudiced against an innocent couple who she accused of child abuse yet in prison Irene manages to keep an open mind and hold a killer’s hand in reassurance when she’s going through a rough time. “And I’m so happy” Is the final line of the monologue which is moving as ironically, in prison, surrounded by people is where Irene is most happy.
Irene has changed dramatically in prison and has loosened up her attitudes to fit in with the other inmates. In the final section of the monologue Bennett concentrated more on humour, this is because.... In prison the inmates teach Irene about sex education; it is humorous because of the character’s situations and the language comedy. Even though Irene is middle aged and we would expect her to at least be partially educated about sex, she is in fact, very naive. “No longer a fish out of water... At least I know the rudiments... I can’t see it coming to that, but still it’s nice to have another string to your bow”. “They’ve even got me smoking now and again...”, this is humorous and adds an element of shock as we always viewed Irene as prim and proper and now she’s in prison she liberal enough to deem smoking as ordinary and acceptable in social situations. There is a lot of joking around in prison and Irene has a lightened sense of humour and everyone knows how to make a joke around her, “Irene, with your qualifications it wouldn’t matter if you’d been in the SS”. There is character and language humour when Irene makes a blunder when defending one of her inmates, “I don’t mean you shouldn’t have said it... You got it wrong. It’s not ... up. It’s ... off”, this is humorous as we would expect such a common expletive to be said correctly but Irene, sheltered from such, got it confused and said it wrong. We are surprised as it is unlike Irene’s character to swear, when before she could only bring herself to say “Dog mess” and say no more but she is now adapting to a non secluded life with all types of people.
Throughout the monologue Bennett surprises us, the audience, by successfully managing to make us laugh and sympathise at the same time. Combining these two elements produces a strong repose from the audience and involvement with the monologue speaker. One theme of this monologue is prejudice, regarding all the assumptions Irene’ made about others she did not know that well. This makes us question our own reason for the prejudice against others and we review our past assumptions. It also causes the audience to look further into their community, as many modern day communities do not see every resident socialising with one another. In the end of the monologue, Irene is happy. Bennet shows humanity towards our weaknesses even if we have done wrong in the past.
