Alan Bennett

YEAR 12 – ALAN BENNETT

Bennett’s style of writing is very unusual, as he does not explain what is happening until the very end. He has a very individualistic style of writing. His style of writing consists of a build up to a climax and then he applies a dramatic twist at the end of the play. By doing this, Bennett arouses a range of mixed emotions. Bennett has a certain structure, which is crucial to how he constructs his monologues. Bennett drops subtle hints about his character’s true nature throughout his monologues. Many of the hints are implied and the further you read, the more explicit the hints become. Dropping subtle hints like this is a very clever way of building up tension and suspense.

Bennett’s characters are very complex and the characters have no introductions as such. The reasons behind Bennett choosing to focus his monologues on quite a mature central character is that they are more experienced in life. However, as the reader we expect them to behave in a particular way when certain situations are presented to them. He gives the readers a chance to build an identity, a character profile for themselves. The relationships between the characters are never as straightforward as the reader or the audience tends to imagine. The fictional characters are always drawn directly from normal, everyday people. Bennett constructs the characters, as the public would imagine. The characters are taken from our everyday lives. From “Playing Sandwiches” – “I wish I was him. Always buying sweets, never gets fat.” The everyday conversation that you would have when you are at your local newsagent.

Bennett makes his readers feel as if they are involved in the story. For example the first scene in “Playing Sandwiches,” when Wilfred is in the local newsagent and that everyday sort of talk. The language is very informal and ordinary. It gives a sense of social realism to the play.

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The truth about some of the characters emerges at the end of the play. It is more or like a secret and as I said before, this builds up the tension and suspense of the play. I feel that is how Bennett makes the story more interesting. Bennett also leaves the readers with a sense of the harsh reality. We do get a sense of the circumstances, which occur, but we do not always feel comforted by our thoughts and feelings.

For example, “Playing Sandwiches” was a very powerful story and our minds will never be filled with peace until we know that Wilfred will be dealt with justice. Bennett brings his readers to realise that nothing ever gets resolved fully. There are many un-answered questions. These kind of real life issues make the readers more aware of situations that occur in our real world. For example, “Nobody there at all” – Wilfred will never stop until there are no children in the world. Only then, he will stop doing what he does. But this will never happen so he will carry on what he does. Wilfred blames his actions on poor innocent children. Bennett is trying to tell us that there are people like this in our world. They think and act in these horrible ways. Bennett is trying to tell us that our society is under attack. I feel that Bennett writes his monologues based on real life issues, because this is how he can get through to people. The style of writing also helps him do this and as I said before it makes the readers feel as though they are involved with the issues. Bennett uses fades to either relieve the tension or move the time on. It also leads to a different scene and subject.

I did a little research on Bennett and I found that Bennett writes most of his monologues as women. When he was a child the women did most of the talking and the men could not express themselves. I felt that I should write as a man, it was very challenging. It is very hard to write something from a man’s point of view, because as I am a female and I do not know how men think and feel. Bennett’s characters tend to represent the common man with frailties and the mistakes that they make. All of his characters are full of secrets and tend to lead double lives. Most of the characters do not confront their secrets. By doing this, Bennett builds up the climax and suspense of the monologue and creates a twist at the end. Bennett also creates a range of emotions of the audience towards the character, compassion, shock, sympathy etc.

I have a monologue, called “Until Death Do Us Part.” I feel that it does have a feel of Bennett’s style, but it does not have enough. My monologue is also not as long as Bennett’s plays. Although I feel that most of the actual story connects with Bennett.

My monologue follows closely in Bennett’s style in the sense it follows the same basic structure. I have included hints, which are subtle to begin with and then become more explicit towards the end. I have also included fades in places where I thought they were appropriate and where there was tension created. I was trying to create the same tension in my monologue as Bennett creates in his. I think I have achieved this by including many hints suggesting that my character could not cope with and handle his wife’s death. My character struggles with the fact that he committed his wife’s murder because she used to nag him, and cover the murder up. People make mistakes and they should learn from it, however my character gets away with it in the end. The certain feeling that something bad has happened under the condition that was created.

My character is known as Daniel. He is a middle-aged white man. Bennett’s characters are either middle-aged or older. He lives in a house in Wales. None of his characters has children except for Violet, but she does not recognise and often forgets who he is. My character doesn’t have any children either. I felt that if I had children involved, then the story wouldn’t be as effective and powerful as it is. The readers wouldn’t focus as much. I made my character lonely as well, so we could sympathise with him, “That’s how I feel, little fella.” I felt this character would be perfect for my monologue as he fits in well with my scenario, and he is ordinary, a character we can imagine being real. In addition, like Bennett’s characters, my character is one of a complex personality. On one hand, we see him upset and devastated about his wife’s death, and this leads the audience to sympathise with him. As the monologue continues it becomes clear that this man is selfish and only cares for his own needs. However we can not help but feel sympathetic towards him, which see to twist admiration for him, as we can not see it as an appropriate justification. We feel disgust towards him for committing the murder, but then think to ourselves he was brought up with his own thoughts, feelings and values. As in Bennett’s monologues, my main character would begin a range of emotions within its readers.

All of Bennett’s monologues tend to explore situations taken to some extreme or another, this is done so they have an impact on the reader and contrast to the characters being ordinary and seeming innocent at the beginning. A good comparison would be with Bennett’s, “Playing Sandwiches” where Bennett explores a paedophilia; he looks at the treatment of the elderly in, “Waiting For The Telegram.” It gives a one sided view without showing any real affects. My monologue looks at real life situations as well. I also left the reader’s hints, but not as much as Bennett. My hints are all over the place and they do not link together as well as Bennett’s. my situation is realistic and the hints I have included may be similar to many people who have suffered in the same situation in reality. It just shows that people may not be as innocent as they seem on the surface but may hold deep dark passions and secrets. My main character is portrayed as a kind and gentle person with a good heart and we sympathies with him because he is lonely and deserted.

I feel that my monologue did have a sense of tension and suspense. I believe I have included the same basic devices as Bennett uses in his monologues and presented a similar situation.