Humour and Conflict in the scene in which Rita and Barbara Clash from Billy Liar

Humour and Conflict in the scene in which Rita and Barbara Clash from Billy Liar

Task: ‘Explain how both humour and conflict are created in the scene

in which Rita and Barbara clash’

Billy liar is set in 1959, at the time of the teenage rebellion and

the start of the swinging sixties. This is reflected in the play

because there are still some ‘old Fashioned’ People around i.e.

Barbara, which tells me that the ‘new age’ hasn’t affected some people

yet. And there are also people like Liz who are really taking to the

new style of living.

Where the play is set and where the family live tells me that they are

quite a ordinary, boring family, if they lived in the middle of the

country I would perceive them as being quite adventurous, Billy wants

to move out of this normal place because he is not normal, with his

strange imagination and random unneeded lies. The furniture in the

house is of dreadful taste and the rooms are very over done which

tells me that Billy’s parents are not very imaginative which is a

contrast of Billy.

Billy likes to tell stories that sometimes he wishes were true like

when he tells his dad Geoffrey that he had been offered a job in

London, I think that this story is bringing up the part of his

personality that makes him unable to face reality. He also makes up

stories just for the sake of it. For example when he tells Barbara

that he had a sister but she died but then covered it up by saying

that his parents never talk about it. I think that Billy is a

desperate teenager who just engaged to Barbara and Rita so that he

could have sex with them and when he found out that Barbara wouldn’t

have sex till they were married he tried to make her split up with him

by telling her that he had been lying to her. He starts this

conversation when he says “Barbara, I’m glad you asked me that

question. About my sister.” I think that when Billy is with Liz he

acts more truthfully and doesn’t seem to make stories when he’s with

her or when he does she can make him come out with the truth. I know

this because Liz says “(changing the subject) How’s everything with

you? How’s the script-writing? How’s the book coming along?” then

Billy replies “(enthusiastically.) Oh, I’ve finished it. It’s going to

be published next Christmas. (She gives him a long, steady look.) I

haven’t published it yet.

The build up to the scene where Rita and Barbara clash starts ever