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.
