How Ayckbourn Presents the Character of Rosemary in Mother Figure

1517 Words4 Pages

An Explanation Of How Ayckbourn presents the character of Rosemary in

Mother Figure.

In Ayckbourn’s play ‘Mother Figure’, Rosemary is the wife of Terry, an

obnoxious sexist male who evidently wears the trousers in their

marriage. Rosemary meets Lucy a strong-minded mother who pushes the

confident, more outspoken Rosemary forward. The two women come very

close in a short amount of time. It soon becomes apparent that there

is trouble in the marriage of Terry and Rosemary and adjustments are

required for the relationship to continue to survive much longer.

Rosemary is portrayed as being a friendly character that is not

necessarily nosey but likes to be informed of what others are up to.

Although she is “frail, mousey-looking” she is quite chatty and is

good at small talk with strangers, especially strangers she wants to

know more about. She wins people over with polite but inquisitive

questions about people’s personal lives for example when questioning

Lucy about her children, she asks “It’s three you’ve got, isn’t it?”

This may be the point at which Lucy is won over. I believe this

because this is the point where Lucy begins to respond with fuller

answers instead of the usual “yes” and “no”. As soon as Rosemary gets

a good excuse, (information about Harry, the husband), she set outs to

investigate the life of her neighbour, Lucy, who is clearly not

interested by what this woman has to say and is somewhat preoccupied

with her role as a mother as “she goes to listen for the children”.

When Rosemary enters the house, it seems as if Lucy constantly tries

to get rid off Rosemary with one-word answers such as “yes” and “no”,

but she is determined to tell Lucy the information she has about

Harry. Rosemary ignores the rudeness and reveals what she has to say.

The monologue from Rosemary, starting, “Yes” through to “husband”, is

a very long speech with pauses, illustrated with numerous hyphens,

showing that Rosemary is nervous about what reaction she will get; she

does not know whether Lucy still talks to her husband which is maybe

why she asks Lucy the questions at the beginning.

The relationship between Rosemary and her husband Terry is a marriage

that seems as if it was at first based on loving each other but over

time it has turned into Terry almost using Rosemary as a slave to care

for him. When Rosemary “Returns from the hall with Terry”, it implies

that Terry isn’t capable of doing anything for himself, not even

walking from one place to another without his wife by his side helping

him along the way.

Open Document