Lady Of Letters Monologue

Monologue analysis.

The recreation of Irene Ruddock’s character in Lady of Letters relies hugely on maintaining the quality of her idiosyncratic ways. Her prejudices and her naivety amongst other things are all relevant traits, and in my recreative piece I found that keeping with Bennett’s structure, form and use of language ensured that Miss Ruddock’s character remained unhampered with.

This artless narrator seems very unaware of her social situation in the sense that she doesn’t seem lonely, even when staring outside vacantly for hours just to catch a glimpse of the couple next door. She is very much in denial, this is evident as she tries to justify her isolated ways, for instance, in Bennett’s piece she explains her meddling as a
way of passing time, “with details of the funeral on the Wednesday afternoon, which is the only time I’m dangling my feet a bit” whilst really we the audience know that she’s never busy. I echoed this use of dramatic irony in my piece as “...
so in equal pace I replied straight away. Well, I’d had all my jobs done by breakfast and those opposite weren’t about, so I was just twiddling my thumbs.” Although, at the same time I believe that unlike Bennett’s other monologue characters, Miss Ruddock is somewhat aware of her isolation as she often pauses after speaking of her mother. This implies that she is reflective of the past; the only time she was truly happy, when mother was alive. To mirror this literary device, I kept pausing after mentioning of her mother, this is evident with “It’s not like the good old days, when mother was alive. Pause.” Also, as in my piece Irene speaks of the time when she tripped and fell, over the same step that she wrote a previous letter about that symbolises the change in time and society, as she believes that when she was younger there would be a whole host of people out to nurse her skinned knee and to find justice for Irene,
by blaming whoever may be considered guilty, “I’d have to so much as skin my knee tripping over the very same broken step and half the street would be out, lynching mob as it were.” This is when Miss Ruddock had people around her, this reflection proves how she believes that it is today’s society that is wrong and unusual, rather than herself but at the same time she is very away of her isolation.

Miss Ruddock’s obsessive fondness of the past is, in my opinion, the main theme flowing throughout Lady of Letter’s.
In my piece I often mentioned, or related back to the past in a way that continues the character’s austere style. As Bennett allows Miss Ruddock to speak with a loose tongue about society in general, “It’ll surprise me if they’re married. He has a tattoo anyway.” this shows her judgemental ways as she implies that a tattoo, something that in her youth was seldom seen, is something that is present within the lower echelons of society and those of bad values. Her prejudices and distortion of her current reality are reflected in my piece as she speaks of what defines a “proper craft”. She speaks ill of university students and even generalises by calling them all “Lay-a bouts”, this proves that Irene is so isolated from today’s society that she genuinely believes that all students are wasting valuable time. Again, Miss Ruddock believing that it is society that is
warped.

Miss Ruddock has her idiosyncrasies, that’s evident. The fact she finds her only social interaction in writing letters and will find any reason to write a letter, like in Bennett’s monologue when she is overjoyed by the letter from the opticians and in my piece as she writes to the library, when really she never spends any time in there, she just wanted a reason to write a letter, “Maybe I’ll go to the library more now, never been before, only went in to use the toilet.”. This is a tragic situation and there is a feeling of pathos whilst the audience sympathises with her.

Like Bennett’s monologue, I feel I have successfully kept with Miss Ruddock’s character and furthered her idiosyncrasies in both a tragic and enlightening way.