The next clear point in which the v-effect is being used is the torture of Warrington by Bodice and Fontanelle through Soldier A. The first indication that there is going to be a violent, disturbing scene is Soldier A saying “Yer wan’ ‘im done in a fancy way?” and then he proceeds to tell the two sisters how he had once cut out a mans throat because “some ladies” wanted to see it. Whilst Warrington is being “beat up” Bodice is calm, knitting and talking to herself “plain, pearl, plain…” to try and remember the pattern she is making. This is the total opposite of her sister, Fontanelle who is screaming out orders like a spoilt child, “Jump on his head!”, “Smash his hands!”, “Kill his hands! Kill his feet! Jump on it – all of it”, “Kill it” “Make him dead!”
Then Bodice calmly pokes her knitting into Warrington’s ears and wiggles them about whilst saying “Doodee, doodee, doodee, doo.” This is a very vulgar and disturbing image but it is also strangely humouring and disturbs the spectator. It is a horrific scene using dramatic technique at its extreme and again makes the audience feel uncomfortable.
At the end of this scene Soldier A refers to Warrington as “walking offal” which is animal parts. Soldier A also says “Yer’ll live if yer want to” and this is the mood of the whole play. In the play there are many subtle hints at things, which will happen later, for example Boy, talking to Lear says “you wouldn’t want to be buried where you work.” This is ironic as Lear dies at the wall.
Act 1, Scene 7 certainly disturbs the spectators, as there are vulgar references to the breaking of women’s legs by Soldiers, the raping of a pregnant woman and “it can play with the end” and “’Ed ‘ave t’ use a carrot.” as a reference to Lear being too old to impregnate the woman. The Soldiers don’t care about any of this and they are cold, use regional dialect and are the blunt, the cliché/ typical henchman. Bond is using our expectations of what a henchman would be like. The Soldiers, throughout the entire play are only called A, B, C, etc, they have no identities and this helps them to be just tools, possibly Bond is criticising the system, not the soldiers. This scene is similar to the torture scene as it uses the v-effect and so you get the uncomfortable humour in parts.
Later in this scene you find out that the Boy’s wife is called Cordelia, this is a parallel to Shakespeare’s King Lear as one of his daughters is called Cordelia. ‘There is blood on Soldiers E’s face, neck, hands, clothes and boots.’ This is again a parallel to one of Shakespeare’s plays but this time Macbeth. Throughout the ‘action’ in this scene pigs are squealing, this is a truly horrendous sound and adds to the apocalyptic feeling of the events, which are unfolding. When the carpenter goes into the house after he has killed one of the soldiers there is a gun shot and then silence. The silence creates suspense and makes the audience wonder what has happened. Silence is also used when Boy dies, this is to add impact and give you time to soak up all that has just happened. Slight pauses are used when Carpenter is talking to Cordelia, these are perhaps him thinking about her, it is later revealed that he loves her.
Bond also disturbs the spectators with the horrific death of Bodice through the use of the v-effect, but unlike other scenes there is no humour. She is stabbed four times with bayonets whilst being pinned down by soldier’s boots, then ‘she gives a spasm and dies’. This is a very cold and clinical death. Bond is playing with our expectations as Fontanelle just dies with no build up whereas Bodice puts up a fight and so is brutally murdered. You would expect these to be the other way around as the word Fontanelle literally is the back part of a babies skull and Bodice means structure or control, and these are shown through the characters. Bodice is quick to make decisions and the power is enslaving to her but Fontanelle, is referred to by her sister as the same as she was at school.
Throughout the play Bond shows us humanity as we “really are” in many ways. He shows us that everyone is different, that you can do extreme things when you are pushed and most importantly that power corrupts. At the start of the play the two sisters seem to be very similar, both cruel and farcical about their husbands, North and Cornwall but as the play progresses it becomes clear that they are very different, Bodice is the more tactical one and the leader and Fontanelle takes a back seat in their plans, she is also subtler than her sister. Also the soldiers are stripped of their identities and are just called A, B, C etc but again as the play progresses differences between them appear between them, for example in Act 2, Scene 5 Soldier L is harsh to the prisoners and is not loyal, “why don’t we run for it?” whereas Soldier J is more sympathetic towards the prisoners and wants to “stick t’ orders as long as yer can”.
Carpenter is introduced as a helpful, “any jobs I can do?”, person who is in love with boy’s wife but Boy says, “Don’t worry about him”. He is just an ordinary person but when he comes back to find Cordelia, the woman he loves, being raped he kills the soldiers to save her. Lear has the power at the beginning of the play but then looses it due to his devious and corrupt daughters. To Bodice the power is enslaving. Lear is very egocentric but he begins to see the world around him when Fontanelle is being dissected in front of him. He also realises his insignificance in the world, “I can do nothing, I am nothing”. Yet at the end of the play Lear realises the wrong he has done and tries to right it by making one last stand and trying to destroy the wall with a shovel, “I am not as fit as I was. I can still make my mark”, he is shot and dies calmly.
In conclusion, in the play Lear there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Bond was seeking to “disturb the spectator”, he has written the play very violently and in this violence he incorporates the v-effect to add humour to these scenes and disturb the “spectator profoundly”. Bond was also quoted to have said “Social morality is a form of suicide”, he is saying that in an unjust society, being socially moral must involve action and if that action leads to death, then so be it. Bond is possibly a socialist or perhaps even a communist as he talks of an unjust society, one person in power, and how that power corrupts.
