In scene one her communication between her and Les the lollipop man shows her lack of communication skills. ‘There’s nott’n comin though’. This shows her lack of English skills by her pronunciation. Her poor vocabulary is shown when she says ‘Y’know…. all the thingy like’. This shows she has trouble expressing herself and that her vocabulary is likely to be limited. Her repetition of words and use of pauses especially in the first scene may show again her lack of education as she might be trying to think of the answer. Repetition of words may be used to show her lack of education, as she will not know many things she repeats the same thing. She often asks Mrs Kay questions, which may show that would like to know more than she does already.
Carol seems to want to escape the poverty trap more than the rest of the progress class, maybe because she sees a life outside of where she lives and in a good life. This is shown when she says
‘One of those nice places, with trees and gardens an’ that’. When she says this to Mrs Kay, Mrs Kay replies with a doubtful answer ‘Maybe’. Mrs Kay knows that Carol is unlikely to live anywhere else because of her lack of education and money.
Willy Russell shows Carol’s humour in scene 31 at conwy castle. Carol thinks that the sea is a lake.
‘That’s not a lake love. It’s the sea’. This shows that Carol has never seen the sea before. Although this is humorous it is also tragic. I think Willy Russell is trying to make us feel sorry for Carol although living in poverty and being in the progress might have been enough. The audience is made aware again of her poverty trap and is shown that because Carol is uneducated and has very few skills she will live in poverty all her life. The readers know that Carol is fooling herself about living in ‘one of those nice places’ because she was brought up in poverty so is unlikely to ever leave it. She will have no qualifications when she leaves school therefore being unemployed, this means she will have no money to buy a nice house in a nice place. This may be because of the lack of interest in the children and to do with people not wanting the children to be educated. This is apathetic because the children are not going to have the opportunity to live in one of those nice places if it is not given to them.
Ronson is trying to tell the reader that the bear in the pit does know of a free life because the pupils in the progress class know of a better life out of poverty. Ronson says that keeping the bear in a pit is cruel and that the bear does know of a life outside of captivity. As he continues to argue his point with the other children and Mr Briggs, he mentions that when the bear is let out it will go mad. This implies that because the bear has been locked up for so long it has been waiting to get out. There are many similarities between the bear and the children in the progress class. One is when Mr Briggs says that because the bear was born in captivity it wont know any other life. Ronson knows that this statement is incorrect because Carol mentions to Mrs Kay about those ‘nice places’ on the telly. This shows the similarity between the bear in the pit and the children in the progress because both know of a life outside of the place they are trapped in. It also shows that the children in the progress class are unlikely to get out of poverty because they are not well educated, even though no one wants them educated. This is because the children will probably work in factories when they leave school. If they were educated they would not work in the factories and the factories would end up shutting down. This situation is like the bear in the pit because once an animal is put into captivity it is very unlikely they will be put back into the wild. Because the bear was born in captivity it is even harder because the bear will not know how to behave or survive in the wild. This is symbolic of the children behaviour when they travel to Conwy. When they get off the bus they go mad and start running around. Mr Briggs calls them animals but they don’t know any other way to behave. A dramatic device is used to create suspense and build tension. It’s a device to give the audience more information. Dramatic devices are used effectively in the play because it gives us a better image of the children in the progress class and their situation. It also gives us a better insight into some scenes where a character could not speak the words. The writer uses Carol to show how deprived the children are, as early as scene one in the play. The stage directions tell us that Carol’s uniform doubles as her Sunday best and street outfit. This shows that her household doesn’t have much money, as they cannot afford clothes for her. As well as her clothes Carol is also clutching a supermarket carrier bag, which again shows us that she cannot afford a school bag. Later on in the play when Carol is talking to Mrs Kay she mentions that she wants to live in ‘one o those nice places, with trees and gardens an’ that.’ To us having a garden and trees outside is not much to get excited over but Carol wishes she could live there. This catches the readers attention by showing the living conditions and how deprived the children are of having opportunities and living in nice places. Willy Russell uses Ronson in the play to explore the similar situations of the bear and the children in the progress class by showing that Ronson thinks that if the bear was let out it was bound to go mad and want to kill people. If the children in the progress class were given the chance they would behave differently because they may have more respect for other and themselves as well as everyone else around them. If the children were better educated there would be more of a chance of living in one of those nice places because they would find better jobs that working in factories therefore earning more money to live in ‘one of those nice places’ because of the opportunity given to them.
