The conflict Marjory has with almost all the other characters is a very valuable method Bennett employs to grab our attention. From her low status relationship with her husband [she feels that Stuart values his dog, Tina, more than he does her], to the difficult relationship that she has with her mother-in-law; that they both compete for Stuart’s affections is present, but you can’t help feeling that Marjory is competing for something she’s not bothered about winning.
One of the key aspects to Outside Dog is the idea that we are being given access to someone else’s most private thoughts and feelings; particularly as when the background story is fully revealed and the reader is right at the heart of what is really happening. We are the first to know about Stuart’s alibis being misleading, his real preference for whether Tina is ever let off the lead, and finally when the slacks are found, removed then replaced, we know. It feels something like a fly on the wall-type witness, but without the pictures.
Visually, however, Alan Bennett builds very vivid and filmic images in the reader’s minds, this is another very engaging technique. Some of the images that are described during one of Marjory’s mother-in-law battles really bring the words and scene alive: There’s a pan on the table, she’s ‘dolled-up’, wearing big earrings, ash is blowing off the plate etc...
Marjory’s resigned approach to her husband’s need for sex is dealt with in a matter-of-fact way. She seems distant, remote and unconnected at all times, particularly when he’s ‘carrying on’ as she puts it. Even this, typically connecting human pursuit, is rendered ordinary, mundane and unwelcome.
Of course, the marriage wasn’t always unhappy; Marjory reminisces about lovely evenings together, although, they were often interrupted by Stuart having to ‘walk the dog’; this could possibly of been her metaphor for finding a new victim.
Fairly soon into the narrative we are given reason to be suspicious about Stuart’s activities, and it’s this continuous suspense that again grips the reader. Insights into the marriage mixed with slues as to what his nights out walking the dog might really entail.
Even when he returns, sometimes after midnight, and washes his clothes it’s pretty clear from her choice of words that she suspects him of wrong-doing.
Bennett also introduces role-play between husband and wife. She asks whether she’s safe to go to the library; he says don’t go over any waste ground, but you get the feeling that they both know exactly what’s going on, although it’s unsaid. The fact that she asks his advice comes as a bit of a surprise, given that they both know what he’s up to. Bennett has now established the two main areas the reader inhabits: Marjory’s world, and the marital world, with the outside world occasionally crashing in.
Bennett now increases the drama by introducing the Police presence, and that the house is about to take a visit.
Marjory avoids the Police question about whether she has any suspicions about someone in her family; ‘we don’t have a family, it’s just me and him, unless you count the dog’. This response gives the reader three choices as to why she answered that way, either:
- She doesn’t know what is going on
- She’s trying to protect her husband
- She’s in total denial that anything is happening at all.
With the police visit, Bennett introduces the first real challenge to Marjory’s control of the situation she’s in. Her husband has been interviewed by the police and not told her. The reader has to share the shock of this moment, and you can vividly sense her surprise at this failure on his part.
At this point, I started to wonder what it was that she was trying to protect; what had ever happened to her that led her to try and conceal a murderer.
An excellent twist that grips the reader next, is that Stuart reveals in conversation that it was his mother that reported him to the police: another shocking, compelling moment; a very unlikely, you would think, betrayal, coming as a complete surprise.
The police interest/enquiry very quickly turns into an arrest and as soon as Marjory is alone, she turns back into the solitary, deluded, muttering woman that we met at the beginning of the story. As each new event occurs e.g. excrement posted through her letterbox, she is able, once again, to contain and qualify her situation; attempting to make the bizarre and absurd seem mundane and ordinary.
As the narrator considers the evidence she’s made aware of, we find further evidence that she is withholding knowledge in order to protect her husband. Crucial evidence that means he is acquitted, relates to the fact that the dog, Tina, apparently spent time off the lead, however, Marjory knows that her husband never lets her off the lead, and, by keeping her silence, ensures that the charges against him will be dropped.
Bennett uses the timing of the court acquittal to brilliant effect, as it coincides with the discovery of the blood-soaked slacks hidden under the kennel. This discovery is the first real, tangible, material item that she has had to deal with and Bennett gives us a great sense of the fact that she is uncomfortable, and suffers her first noticeable wobble. It is as if her world has actually been violated and a sense of panic comes over her; she even ‘sneaks’ into her own house to put the slacks in a bin bag ready to dispose of them. The reader is drawn to the brilliantly co-timed acquittal and significant discovery.
Finally, in between having sex twice with him, she goes out into the yard and puts the soiled slacks back under the kennel, with Bennett giving the reader one final choice to make. Why did she do it? The final ambiguity of why Marjory decided to put the evidence back, leaving it undiscovered, is left for the reader to decide.
Given that Marjory is the main/only character and the whole story is shot through the prism of her life, it is fair to say that her qualities, views, feelings are what drives the story and hold your attention. That she is expressing confidential information is wonderful, making the reader feel ‘in on it’. That she is lonely, vulnerable and despairing will be obvious, but our ability to sympathise is less so.
Marjory holds the key to our enjoyment of this piece and the methods and techniques by which Bennett brings the characters and plot alive are varied. If I had to choose three main aspects of why I enjoyed this piece so much, they would be the humour, the dramatic timing of each new twist and Marjory’s deadpan delivery.
