Jonny O’Brien 10DO
How does Bennett create sympathy for Doris?
A monologue is one person speaking their thoughts aloud or directly addressing a reader or audience. ‘Talking Heads’ is a series of monologues written by Alan Bennett; it was first aired on the BBC in 1987. ‘A Cream Cracker under the Settee’ is a monologue about a 75 year old woman called Doris played by Thora Hird who likes to keep her home well kept but the lady who comes to help clean her house, Zulema, does not seem to be doing a great job. The care home that she dislikes may be the only place left for her, but it seems that she would rather die.
In this monologue Bennett creates sympathy for Doris is many ways. Doris is a frail old woman who lives on her own. She has “a pacemaker and dizzy spells”. In the monologue she falls off a buffet as she is trying to dust. At the beginning of the story all she says is that “It’s such a silly thing to have done” and then does not talk about it again until later on. Later you find out that she has fallen and it seems that it was just a small fall, but throughout the story it is revealed that it was quite bad and that she has broken her hip. This shows that she is fragile. The photo that she was trying to dust fell off and cracked, “Cracked the photo. We’re cracked Wilfred”. The word cracked suggests that she’s old and her relationship is over now that her husband, Wilfred, is dead. Another connotation of the word ’cracked’ is that she feels she is no longer useful to society, when something is cracked it can no longer be used. . As Doris tries to lift herself up she says “This must be what they give them them frame things for.” When she says ‘they’ she means the people at Stafford house the old people’s home. “They” give the old people at Stafford house Zimmer frames and throughout the story it slowly sounds like Doris needs one. “If I can catch him…If I can get there I can open it and wait while somebody comes past.” This seems very unlikely because she is unable to move her legs. The repetition of the word ‘if’ suggests that there is no future for her.
