Another character similar to Millandra is Joe, Shirley’s husbands. Joe is a key to understand how Shirley feels. He has lost his humour during marriage and now he treats his wife like a slave. Joe demands food from Shirley and if he does not get what he wants, he goes into an aggressive nature and goes violent. This make us feel bad for Shirley because of the way she is treated by her own husband who is meant to love her . When Joe says, “I get my tea at 6.” This represents the lack of respect that Joe has for Shirley. It also shows Joe has a schedule for Shirley. When Shirley makes Joe fried eggs and chips on a Thursday, Joe looks at Shirley furiously. He says, “I like fried eggs and chips on a Tuesday, today is Wednesday.” This explains to us that Joe is trying to tell Shirley that he doesn’t want the fried eggs and chips that Shirley made, he wants what he has on a normal Thursday, his steak. After Shirley attempts to fight back, Joe erupts in rage and pushes the eggs and chips onto Shirley’s lap; “With a violent shove Joe pushes the food onto Shirley’s lap.” This demonstrates to us the aggression that Joe has to Shirley. It makes us feel bad because it shows us what Shirley’s life is like, all she does is cook food and live as a housewife.
Willy Russell attempts to make us sympathise for Shirley and other working class women during the 1960’s uses dramatic devices. Russell uses many dramatic devices such as Voice Over’s (VO), Flashbacks, camera, pathetic fallacy, music and use of colours. Willy Russell uses a key dramatic device called flashbacks; identifies what a certain character saw during his/her past. One of the flashback Willy Russell’s uses to try and make us sympathise for Shirley is when she is in school, in this flashback, we are shown how Shirley was treated in the past. In school we are told by Shirley’s voice over, another dramatic device, that she always wanted to be an air hostess and wanted to be rich. But we know due to the present tense that her dreams were shattered. During the flashback it shows Shirley being regretted by her Headmistress to answer a question, the headmistress tells Shirley that she couldn’t know the answer; “Do put your hand down Shirley.” This illustrated to us that the headmistress thinks that Shirley doesn’t know the answer and that she will not succeed in life. Compared to the other students, Shirley’s voice is very ‘Middle-class’, as for the other students it is very ‘High-class’. The teacher talks to those that are high class very respectively such as Marjorie Majors but to students like Shirley, the teachers talk to them very irrespectively. An example of this is when the teacher says to Shirley, “Very well Shirley, you might as well get it wrong like everyone else.” This explains to us that during Shirley’school days, she was treated irrespectively by teachers due to her class. Also, during this flashback, Shirley gets an answer right that even the top student, Marjorie Majors got wrong. When Shirley says the answer correct, all the students laugh at her, this explains to us that the students also disrespect Shirley.___
Another dramatic device Willy Russell uses is voice over’s, as mentioned earlier. Using voice over’s demonstrates to us what Shirley is really thinking in her mind, the voice over’s show Shirley’s true opinions and makes us sympathise for what she tells us. A demonstration of this is when Shirley says to us in the form of a voice over; “And all me housepoints and me blessin’ from the pope just disappeared before my eyes. I was never really interested in school after that. I became a rebel.” This is showing us that Shirley speaks what she was really thinking or really felt. This make us sympathise for Shirley because she can trust us a lot.
Willy Russell also uses the camera as a dramatic device, he uses the camera as if it is us. Shirley talks to the camera as if it was her confidante, she gives her true opinions to the camera; “I know he’ll keep his promise but the truth is... (Shirley turns and speaks to the CAMERA) I don’t want him to.” This demonstrates how much Shirley trusts us, the camera.
Willy Russell’s also uses many other dramatic devices that are not used as much. One is music, in Greece the music is up-tempo and jolly but in Liverpool, England the music is very slow and sad. Another device is pathetic fallacy, this is used whilst Shirley is walking down the street. It starts to rain at the same time as Shirley being sad. The rain make Shirley look even sadder therefore making us sympathise for her. Also when Joe pushes the food Shirley cooked, there is silence for a while, this is demonstrating how Shirley feels in a way that cannot be described verbally.
The language Willy Russell’s uses is another technique that is used to invite us to sympathise for Shirley Valentine. He uses a variety of devices such as humour (at time self-deprecating), emotive language and use of third person. An example of humour is when Shirley describes herself as on the, “Missing persons list.” And also she says that she has “Disappeared” Shirley’s exaggeration and self-deprecation makes us sympathise for her because she no longer know who she is and has lost nearly everything. She is living a boring lifestyle.