Vicki Cummins 10Ao
Lady Of Letters
How believable do you find the transformation of Miss Ruddock in prison?
Miss Irene Ruddock, the narrator of this monologue, is a lonely, unhappy middle-aged woman who has no friends or family and lives alone in her plain house. She is a woman who has many problems with keeping up to date with society. She has many things that are wrong to her in her life. This essay discusses her dramatic change as she is put in prison, and how believable it is.
Miss Ruddock was a very lonely and isolated person towards the beginning of the book. She has no close friends or relatives in which to confide or to talk in depth to. The tensions she had, she kept to herself because she had no one that she could tell. If she had had a bad day, there was no one that he could talk to, to relieve her stress. No one would talk to her unless they had to because she appeared to them as a very pessimistic person. She may have been negative like this because it is generally easier to criticise than to compliment. With Miss Ruddock taking a negative attitude, some of this rubs off on the person that she is speaking to. Their relationship then takes a downward turn, which gives Miss Ruddock an excuse to complain. To express her complaints, she writes letters about them. She is nosey and thinks in her mind that she can solve and help other people’s problems. She sometimes interferes where she isn’t needed; this is the case about the ‘neglected child’. Letters are a way to challenge people, with out having to return an immediate reply. There is no chance for an immediate reply; Miss Ruddock does this when she sees dog mess on the slope. This is just a minor problem, yet to communicate with someone, she voices her concern. When speaking about this problem she says that ‘there’s more now than there used to be’. It is a possibility that she only thinks this now because she complains now and looks for things to complain about, yet in the past, when she had family and friends to talk to, she may have been a more optimistic person. Also at the crematorium she complained. This was a time of sorrow, and all she did was cause more, although she thought it was helping. The people were dealing with grief there, so there was no need to cause more. There was no concern show about the deceased. She feels the need to judge people by their appearances. An example of this is with the kid next door, by saying that she thinks he is being mistreated, when all she’s seen is no tablecloth and a few other things that are so small. But because this is wrong in her mind, and doesn’t match up to her standards, there must be something wrong. This is also like saying that anyone who isn’t a copy of her must be doing something wrong. Again her pessimistic attitude towards life shows through. At times she becomes a hypocrite. This happens when she speaking about the cleansing officer and saying that he shouldn’t write back. Then when he doesn’t, she thinks that he is being rude. She is obviously disappointed as she finishes her sentence ‘typical’ She has generalized people like this and thinks that they are all of society are like this.
