shirley valentine

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To what extent does the character Shirley Valentine fit into the stereotypical role of a house wife?

Introduction  

The play Shirley Valentine was written by an author named Willy Russell and adapted into a feature film. He set it in Liverpool because this city summed up the attitude of working class men to their wives. The wives were expected to stay at home, cook their husbands meals, look after the children etc, while the husbands went out and worked and provided the finances. Liverpool is a typical northern working class town.

It was a good statement for the beginning of the film.

Themes

Shirley Valentine was a housewife, meaning she didn't work. Her role was being a  mother, who cooked and cleaned for her husband and children.

Housewife means a woman who works at home and relies on her husband's financial support. Therefore she was a working person but without a salary and her work place was the home.

On page 2, scene 2, it shows how being a housewife isn't a perfect lifestyle. Shirley is talking to the wall, and drinking through the day, indicating that she  is bored, lonely and doesn't have a very good social life:

 “There's a woman three doors down the road – talks to her microwave! Wall, what's the world coming to?”

When Shirley drinks through the day, it shows that she is really quite depressed and that the alcohol actually took her away from the dull predicament that she was in. This appears to have been quite common in housewives during the 1980s.

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By 6 o'clock, Shirley's in the kitchen preparing Joe's dinner and talking to the wall, “Do you know what i would like to do wall...” This clearly shows that she is desperate and using the wall to replace her absent social life, and perhaps the lack of communication that has now built up between her and her husband.

Marriage

Joe and Shirley were a happy couple, they both had fun and were carefree and extravagant. There was a lot of humour between them just like any other newly wed couple.

As the film goes on, the fun disappears and ...

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