‘The Dear Departed’ by Stanley Houghton (CBSE CLASS X) Part 1 of 5

Dear students, open your Literature book of class X. Today I’ve brought for you a drama ‘The Dear Departed’ by Stanley Houghton from your prescribed book, .

In this play, the characters are the two sisters, Mrs. Slater, Mrs. Jordon, Victoria Slater is a girl of ten years and their husbands, Mr. Henry Slater and Mr. Ben Jordon. Mr. Abel Merry Weather is the father of the two sisters.

As the scene opens, you assume that the stage is in front of you. I try to describe the scene. It is of a lower middle class.

 There is a sitting room of a lower middle class people of a provincial town.

On the left side of the spectators, there ia window in the wall, and the blinds are down.

A sofa is placed in front of it and there is a fireplace on the right side, having under the mantelpiece. An armchair is also lying near it.

In the middle of the wall facing the spectators, there is a passage that leads inside. A cheap & shabby chest is lying to the left of the central door and to its right side there an almirah made up of a board. It the centre of the living room there is  a round table with some chairs around it. An American clock is placed on the mantelpiece.  A kettle is put on the hearth also.

There is a pair of slippers near the board almirah. The necessaries for meals are put on the almirah and also some old magazines and papers.

If you enter the central door and proceeds to the left, it would lead you to the main door and if you turn toward the right, you will find upstairs. In the passage a hat stand is also visible.

When the curtain rises, Mrs. Slater is seen laying the table for tea.

Mrs. Slater is vigorous, vulgar in speech, not ready to yield in arguments, wearing blacks, not in complete mourning dress.

 Then she heard some voice coming from the window, walks fast towards it, opens the window and shouts at Victoria and orders her to come in.

Then she closes the window and the blinds straight.

Victoria is precocious (adult before time) girl. She is fond of wearing colourful dresses.

Her mother chides her for wandering in the street while her father is lying dead in his bed. She tells her to change her colorful dress before her uncle Mr. Ben and aunt Mrs. Jordon come.

 She advises her to wear a white frock as her uncle and aunt would not like her in colourful dress.

Victoria shows her ignorance to all what is happening in the house. She asks her mother as to why Mr. Ben and Mrs. Slater are visiting them.

She uses exaggeration in telling her mother that they have not come there for ages.

Her mother tells her that they are coming to settle matter on account of the death of their father.

See how materialism makes human beings selfish. They are just worried about the property, not for the dead person in the house.

She tells Victoria that her father had sent a telegram to them as soon as he was found dead.

At the very moment, some voices are heard from the street. They think that they have come. She is alert at once. She wishes that they should not come at that time.

Mrs. Slater hurries to the door and it was Henry Slater. He is a stooping heavy man with drooping moustache. He is also in black dress, carrying a paper parcel. He enters searching for the guests here and there.

Mrs. Slater tells Victoria to go upstairs at once to change her dress.

Then Mrs. Slater talks to Henry and says that she is not satisfied with the black dress she is wearing.

After that she thinks about Mr. Ben and Mrs. Slater and feels happy that they would have not thought about the mourning dress. She thinks that they would outshine Mr. Ben and Mrs. Jordan.

Henry sits at the armchair near the hearth. She orders him to remove his shoes as he had come from outside with those must have dirt on them. She says that her sister Mrs. Slater has prying eyes and she would detect even the slightest atom of the dirt in the house.

She also tells him to wear the slippers of her father, which were lying there near the almirah.

Henry doubts that they would come at all because she had said that she would never set foot in this house when there was a quarrel between the two sister.

Mrs. Slater is sure that she would come running the moment she comes to know about the death of her father.

She would definitely come to decide her share. She is so stubborn and hard for her selfish motives.

She wonders while tearing the parcel that Henry had fetched as to why she is so stubborn and finds an apple pie in it. She puts it in the dish at the table.

Henry speaks in a playful way that stubbornness has come to Mrs. Slater from her family, that is from her father.

Henry asks for his slippers, but Mrs. Slater tells him to wear the new pair as his were old and worn out.

Then she shows as if she was breaking down emotionally at the death of her father. She says that she cannot bear to see the things belong to her father lying here and there scattered & quite useless. She justifies her suggestion mad e to Henry about wearing the slippers of her dead father.

Henry says that the slippers do not fit in his feet as they are small in size, but she will have her say and tells him that they would get stretched.

She has finished laying the table. Then she suggests him to bring down the bureau that is lying in father’s room. She also says that SHE ALWAYS WANTED TO HAVE IT AFTER HER FATHER’S DEATH.