Page 347 - DENG403_BRITISH_DRAMA

Unit 32: Roots: Characterization and Theme

State whether the following statements are true or false: Notes
5. The inner framework contains social and political issues, held together dramatically by the
playwright’s urgent concern for them and by his conviction.
6. From the contemporary sociological angle, Beatie Bryant is a working-class girl, newly
awakened to the joys of extra-marital love.

32.2 Summary

• Wesker’s most notable qualities are emotional maturity and his command of action in depth.
• The first means that he never condescends to his characters, the second that what happens on
stage is always more interesting in performance than we would be likely to guess from
quotation.
• The inner framework contains social and political issues, held together dramatically by the
playwright’s urgent concern for them and by his conviction that they affect the homely
characters in front.
• Arnold Wesker has tried his best explores the theme of self-discovery.
• Beatie Bryant, daughter of Norfolk farm labourers, has fallen in love with Ronnie Kahn from
the Chicken Soup family.
• During the two-week waiting period Beatie is full of Ronnie’s thoughts and words. To greet
him the family gathers for a huge Saturday afternoon tea.
• Ronnie doesn’t turn up. Instead comes a letter saying he doesn’t think the relationship will
work. The family turns on Beatie. In the process of defending herself she finds, to her delight,
that she’s using her own voice.
• Her stern but hospitable mother gathers the family to meet him. An event of great importance
is about to take place: Beatie’s lover is coming to meet the family. He has been described,
imitated, quoted, talked about, made fun of and eagerly awaited.
• At the end of Roots there is a good example of the way this three-fold pressure is applied.
• The elementary theatrical situation is that of a heroine ditched by her fiancé and alone with a
family she has outgrown.
• From the current sociological angle, Beatie Bryant is a working-class girl, newly awakened to
the joys of abstract painting, classical music, and extra-marital love.
• From Wesker’s angle she is all that, and also a creature with a choice between self-realisation
and absorption by the greedy mass of spenders corrupted by advertising; from her own, she
is a woman in love who has done her best to reconcile her boy-friend’s view of life with that
of her mother.

32.3 Keywords

Current affairs : The cultural, political, and social events of importance and interest at the present
time; also called current events.
Imitated : To follow or endeavor to follow as a model or example.
Quoted : To repeat (a passage, phrase, etc.) from a book, speech, or the like, as by way of
authority, illustration, etc.

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