Billy’s grandmother is a strange character in this play. She, like his father, does not like the way he behaves but she would appear to have a mental problem because she never actually addresses Billy to express her discontent; she tends to talk to the furniture. I think that this really annoys Billy, due probably to the age gap in that Billy has a completely different set of standards to his grandmother. However, another irritation to Billy could be the fact that despite her not actually being able to address him, sometimes she does have quite a strong point, such as when she tells him that he, like she had to, should “get up of a morning to eat his breakfast”.
Billy’s mother, on the other hand, is very supportive and mollycoddles him; for example, she is prepared to make him breakfast three or four times as she waits for him to come down from his bedroom. Billy’s attitude towards his mother’s kindness however is wrong as he treats her in an appalling manner. From Billy’s grandmother we can see that Billy has no respect for his elders, not even inside his own family.
As we get into the play, Billy’s standards become apparent as he prepared to see his best friend covering his shift at work because he could not be bothered turning up on a Saturday morning. What is clear about Billy is that he has a very over active imagination. The first example of this is when Arthur comes to his house and they act out some little sketch about a mill.
I think that there are several questions that w have to ask about Billy:
Why does he lie?
Why does he have three girlfriends?
Why is he very childish?
Why does he steal things? And also are his family right to criticise him so much?
The first thing that I am going to answer is why does Billy lie? I think that there is only one real explanation for this – Billy has over his teenage years developed an inferiority complex. I believe that this has happened because he is always being criticised by his Father. Also the play indicates that he did not do well at school; if this is the case, teachers would have always been moaning at him. If this happens to a person for a number of years they will probably loose self-confidence and feel that their achievements in life are nothing to be proud of. This, however, would only explain why Billy lies about his job with Danny Boon in London. I think that the reason he lies about the occupation of his Dad is because he is embarrassed about most aspects of his father’s character; embarrassed that his father was a conscientious objector in the war; he would not appear to be too proud of the job that his father does, therefore he tells his friends that his dad is a captain of a merchant tanker, which at the time was a very impressive job. I think also that he tells lies to people at shops because he does not have much to talk about; his life is uneventful and boring. For instance, he tells the woman in the fish shop that his father has had his leg amputated. I think that he does this partly for sympathy and partly for attention.
There is no explanation for Billy having three girlfriends. However it is possible to look at why he is going out with the three girls. The reason I believe that he is going out with Barbara is that she seems to be quite gullible and believes a lot of the stories that he makes up. This would empower him and make him feel better about himself and more confident. The stories would then increase in scope and size. Perhaps she is just humouring him. An example of this would be in Act 2 when Billy tells Barbara about how is father is a bitter old man, and how he has had the cupboard that has the calendars in it locked for fifteen years. There would appear to be nothing physically attractive about Barbara, so Billy must like being able to string her along with his tales; for example she seems to play along with his fantasies about cottages in Devon quite willingly.
His next fiancée is Rita and she is completely different to Barbara. Rita is much more modern and attractive but from a lower class background. Billy would appear to have got involved with Rita more for the physical side of their relationship, and she does not particularly have any real feelings for her; it is definitely more about sex.
Then there is the girl he really likes, Liz. She appears towards the end of the play and would appear to be very similar to Billy in that she has a very active imagination. She often joins in as he imagines a small fantasy world in which he is the ruler. Another similarity is that she would rather run away from problems than tackle them. The only difference is that she has the nerve to actually do it and leave, where as Billy does not. I think that Billy got himself engaged to Barbara because he thinks that he might get her into bed and he gets engaged to Rita because he has just got carried away in a moment. However when he gets the opportunity to run away with Liz he does not take that chance and stays at home instead. However although he shows signs of commitment towards Barbara his motives must be questioned; for example would somebody who really loved their partner break the law by buying passion pills just to get her into bed? However, I do think that Barbara, by going along with Billy’s fantasies, helps him to feel better. This is because he has a poor home life and making up dreams is his way of coping with it.
Billy is childish in making up his little stories and often slipping into his fantasy world. An example of his juvenile behaviour is when at work he fills a child’s coffin with water and plays with small boats in it. Also towards the end of the play, Billy’s infantile antics cost him his best friend, Arthur. This is because he spreads rumours about Arthur’s mother and Arthur does not take kindly to this. After having an argument they go their separate ways.
Billy also seems to not want his job at Shadrack and Duxbury’s and would appear to have been pushed into getting it by his father; this may be another source of friction within his family.
Billy does not appear to have any good reason for stealing the postage money or the calendars. The only reason I can think that he took the money out of the postage book is to buy the engagement rings for Rita and Barbara. However Billy has no reason whatsoever to take the calendars other than he is lazy and could not be bothered to post them.
I think that Billy’s father needs to be a little more understanding towards him regarding work and Billy’s social life. Although his father comes from a different generation he should understand that teenagers are bound to stay out with their friends until the next morning, so I don not think Billy’s parents are right to criticise him on that count. However it would appear that his parents worked really hard to be able to send him to a grammar school and Billy has made a mockery of their generosity by not repaying their sacrifices and working to the best of his potential. This could also be another reason for his lie about a script writing job with Danny Boon; he possibly feels embarrassed that he is working with Arthur who did not go to a big impressive grammar school, so Billy has to make something up so that he does not feel as though he is failing.
An overall summary of this play would be that Billy’s father’s criticisms over his life have led to Billy developing an inferiority complex which leads to him lying a lot which eventually leads to the crumbling of his world.
So to conclude, Billy is presented in this play as a lazy, rude, foolish and dishonest young man who needs to reform his ways, but it would not appear that he can. We see this from the closing scene where Billy re-enters his house and starts conducting an imaginary orchestra.
Richard Smith 11J
