PDF file: Drama - Higher - Lovers - Education Scotland

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OVERALL DIRECTORIAL INTERPRETATION AND DRAMATIC COMMENTARY
flowers in the middle’. We end the play with the clear affirmation that
the enduring and pervading influence of the Catholic church
continues to have a firm grip on Andy.
• Hope: Andy has his dreams. The cosy picture that he paints of the
accountant and his wife reflects what he wants for himself.
• Imposed divisions: Hannah now sleeps in her mother’s bedroom.
Andy sleeps alone.
Develops characters and relationships
Andy
• Andy reveals that he is a pragmatist rather than a romantic when he
informs us that one of the reasons he married Hannah was to avoid
being sent to Belfast.
• Andy is easily duped by Hannah and her mother. He doesn’t take a
stand against going back to Mrs Wilson’s house after his honeymoon.
• His monologue at the beginning of this Extract consolidates his role
as the outsider.
• His relationship with Hannah has changed. He is now a lonely,
ostracised middle-aged man who would have been happier remaining
a bachelor and living in his own cottage.
• Andy manages to have one chance to get back at his mother-in-law.
He is given the ideal ammunition to use. He lacks the moral fibre to
reveal his devastating news about St Philomena in a sober state. His
glorious drunken attack provides the climax of the play and proves to
be his undoing.
Hannah
• We see Hannah in a state of distress at the beginning of this Extract.
She is worried about her husband. She is given moral support by her
mother and Cissy. ‘Trite words of consolation are being spoken. And
one gets the sense of feminine solidarity and of suffering
womanhood.’
• Once she realises that Andy is drunk she is devastated. In her eyes
Andy has descended to the depths of depravity and his moral decay
has an instant effect.
• She sides with her mother against Andy. She can now justifiably do
this with a clear and righteous conscience.
• Our final stage picture of Hannah is one of an unattractive, cold
woman who has lost any passionate interest in her husband. ‘Her
coldness is withering.’
• We are reminded of her earlier courtship when Andy offered her the
clove rock. Her rejection of his peace offering is symbolic of the
emptiness of their married life.
DRAMA