Billy Liar - The characters in the play display very negative attitudes towards Billy. He upsets his family, his friends, his girlfriends, andhis employers. Explain how Billy is presented in the play, and writeabout your reactions to the character.

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The characters in the play display very negative attitudes towards Billy. He upsets his family, his friends, his girlfriends, and his employers. Explain how Billy is presented in the play, and write about your reactions to the character.

Billy Liar is a book written by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall, which is set in the early sixties. The main character is a young man of nineteen years called Billy Fisher. He lives with his parents, Alice and Geoffrey, and his grandmother Florence, in a small terrace house in a working class area.

The play starts at half past nine in the morning with Billy still in bed. Geoffrey and Florence find this appalling, as this is not acceptable by their standards. Geoffrey shouts at Alice for not getting him up as he says to her “Go up to him. Go up and kick him out”, he thinks that she doesn’t teach in any discipline.

Florence thinks that both Alice and Geoffrey let him do just as he likes as she repeats this a number of times. Billy’s lifestyle, attitude, and morals are very different to those which Florence grew up with and so she complains a lot about him. Geoffrey shouts at Billy and complains at everything he says and does. Billy responds to this with cheek and sarcasm which further irritates Geoffrey and so therefore continues abusing Billy. He never has anything helpful, or encouraging to say to Billy throughout the whole play, it’s all criticisms and moans. This is not the way to help Billy, but Geoffrey hasn’t seemed to realise this yet.

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 From Geoffrey’s and Florence’s point of view, Billy is lazy, disrespectful, good for nothing slob who is a disgrace to their family. Alice isn’t as firm with Billy and often takes his side when Geoffrey is shouting at him. She is more supportive and helpful to Billy, as it is almost certain that Geoffrey would have thrown Billy out of the house by now if it weren’t for Alice. She, however, may be partially responsible for Billy’s laziness as she has not taught him enough discipline or been tough on him, as she is extremely tolerant of his behaviour. Billy ...

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