Our Day Out, Willy Russell Essays

Our Day Out, Willy Russell Essays Our Day Out, Willy Russell Paper Our Day Out, Willy Russell Paper Essay Topic: Literature Willy Russell wrote our Day out in 1977. The story is set in a working class area in Liverpool. The theme of this story is about a group of academically challenged children who go on a trip. The school is an inner city comprehensive school and many of the children come from poor or single parent families. The story tells us the troubles that the children and teachers come across. We also see changes in peoples characters, we see how the trip has helped them to change. The aim of the trip is for the to have fun as the children are academically challenged with little chance of passing exams or getting a good job. There are two main teachers in the play; Mrs Kay and Mr Briggs. Both of them have different teaching methods and both of them work in their own way. Mrs Kay has a more sympathetic, caring and lenient attitude to the children, which would explain why the children like her so much. Mr Briggs has a harsh, stern and disciplined attitude to the children again which would explain why the children hate him so much yet fear him also. It is very clear from the beginning that Mrs Kay supports the children. She supports them in the way that she does because she knows that these children have no real chance in life and therefore feels sorry for them so she tries to support them as much as she can. These children will probably end up on the dole or stuck in a dead end job so Mrs Kay tries to make sure that there is at least one happy time in their lives (the trip), as their lives will probably be filled with misery. The driver Ronny Sutcliffe first shouts at the children for getting onto the bus without his permission and then about the possibility of them having lemonade and chocolate on them. Ronny refuses to let the children onto the bus until Mrs Kay searches the children for the forbidden items (chocolate and lemonade). When Mrs Kay takes Ronny away to have a private word with him she signals the children to get onto the bus without him knowing. When Mrs Kay talks to Ronny she greatly exaggerates the truth so that Ronny will go easy on the kids. Mrs Kay says The kids do not know what it is to look at a chocolate bar. Lemonade never touches their lips This is greatly exaggerating the truth as when Mrs Kay enters the coach the kids are stuffing themselves with chocolate and lemonade. Mrs Kay also says At Christmas time when the kids from your better schools are opening presents and singing carols, these kids are left to wander the cold cruel streets This is also probably an exaggeration (a hyperbole). Mrs Kay says these heart-warming things so that Ronny does not ruin the purpose of the trip, which is to have fun. The effect of Mrs Kays speech is that Ronny ends up feeling sorry for the kids and then ends up giving money to a boy so that he can go and buy sweets with that money. This makes the audience feel that Mrs Kay truly does care and love these children to the extent that she lies for them. At the beginning of Scene Five when Susan (a young teacher) asks Mrs Kay what she did, Mrs Kay replies with Lied like hell of course this shows that Mrs Kay acknowledges the fact that she lied for the children. Again we learn that Mrs Kays character would lie on the childrens behalf. This is not how most teachers respond but Mrs Kay is the exception. When Mrs Kay speaks on the coach we learn that besides having fun Mrs Kay is also concerned that the children should keep safe and not harm themselves or others. So Mrs Kay worries about their safety also we can see this from the following quote No silly squabbling or doing anything dangerous to yourselves or to others. Thats the only rule for today When Mr Briggs gets onto the coach everyone falls silent. Before Mr Briggs came on board the kids were shouting and mucking about but as soon as Mr Briggs came aboard everyone fell silent and their eyes looked towards Briggs. He is a cloud on the blue horizon This means that the sky is perfect apart from the big cloud that is obscuring the perfect sky. In other words the trip is going to be perfect apart from the big cloud (Mr Briggs) who is ruining the trip. Willy Russell is using a metaphor as he is comparing Mr Briggs to a big cloud in the sky. Mr Briggs starts shouting at the children the moment he arrives on the coach, he does not even given the children a chance to show him that they can behave. The moment Mr Briggs starts shouting at the children we can see how he really feels about the children. It is as if he is talking at the children not to them. We can also see that Mr Briggs has a bad attitude. He is arrogant, impatient and does not understand the childrens situations. He also does not understand why the children behave like they do. The language that is used in the play is a common Liverpool dialect. The children do not speak properly. They speak very common and do not use proper speech. I think the writer has included a Liverpool accent because in the 1970s Liverpool was a poor industrial area. As the story is about poor school children a perfect setting would have been Liverpool. Also they have a Liverpool accent to show that they are not properly educated which ties in with the character of Mrs Kay. As Mrs Kay and Mr Briggss professional relationship is sour they do not agree with each other on how these kids should be taught. When Mr Briggs is sitting with a student (Reilly), Mr Briggs points out of the window to the South Docks. Mr Briggs talks about the architecture and the beauty of the buildings. You can tell that Mr Briggs has had a good education. When Mr Briggs looks at buildings he sees the architecture and history of the buildings. When the children look at buildings all they see is a building built from bricks and cement they do not see the architecture and history like Mr Briggs does. Mr Briggs sees the buildings for what they really are, from this alone you can see that he has had a good education. When Reilly sees the Docks all he can see is the workplace of his father. When questioned about what his father thinks about the Docks Reilly replies with He hates it you can tell that Mr Briggs is disappointed with this answer as he thinks a lot of the Docks. In reply to Reillys answer Mr Briggs tells Reilly to tell his father Tell him to stop and have a look at whats around him. Yes, he might see things a bit differently then So when Mr Briggs talks to the children he has intellectual things to say while Mrs Kay mostly talks to the children to explain things such as the location in which they live in. Some of these conversations provide comedy. Others help us to see how deprived the children are. One conversation that Mrs Kay has with Carol shows us how deprived some of the pupils really are When Ive started to work hard now an learned how to read, d y think Id be able t live in one of them nice places (places with gardens and trees outside) Mrs Kays response to this is Well you could try, couldnt you love, eh? which shows that Mrs Kay doesnt think that Carol could achieve this dream yet she doesnt tell Carol her true thoughts. Instead she gives Carol hope that this dream could be achieved one day. This is the exact opposite of what Mr Briggs would do, Mr Briggs would tell Carol that she would never be able to achieve this dream. When Mr Briggs talks to Andrews about his smoking we can see the type of background that Andrews has come from. When asked about what his parents think about his smoking Andrews replies with Me mum says nottn about it but when me dad comes home sir, he belts me Mr Briggs replies with Because you smoke? The Andrews says Sir no, its because I dont give him one Mr Briggs is taken aback with Andrews reply. Mr Briggs assumed that his father belts him because he smokes not because he wont give him a cigarette. From this we can see that Andrews comes from a home where his parents dont care about what he gets up to. They obviously do not care about Andrewss health, as they do not say anything to him about his smoking. His father encourages the smoking by asking Andrews for cigarettes himself. Mr Briggs asks Andrews whether his father goes out to sea Andrews replies with a no and says He just comes round every now an then an has a barney with me mam. Then he goes off again. She hates him. We all do Again we learn that Andrewss parents obviously do not care about him or his health. It also seems that he has grown up in a house where his parents constantly argue which cannot be good for him. He says that his mam hates his Dad which is also not a good thing as hell never learn how to love someone, if his parents do not love each other then he will not be able to either. His parents are supposed to be his role models. So by arguing they have already set him up for a life of failed relationships, as he will probably treat his girlfriends/wives just like his Dad treats his Mum. His parents have harmed Andrews psychologically. Earlier on in Scene six during a conversation between Digga, Andrews and Reilly, Digga and Reilly say that Andrews Mum picks up black men on Parly. They also say that his Mum must be loaded as blacks pay a lot of money for a bit of white. In other ways they are saying that his Mum is a prostitute. Scene six is very long compared to the other in the play. I think that this scene is longer than the others are because Willy Russell wants to show us some of the characters backgrounds. He wanted us to familiarise ourselves with the characters like we have known them for a long time. At the beginning of the play we never got to find out what makes the characters tick what their lives are like, why they behave like they do. In this scene we find out a little about Mr Briggss background and why he cannot understand and sympathise with the children. In Scene twenty-one there is a conversation between Mr Briggs and Colin (a young teacher). In the conversation Mr Briggs talks about Mrs Kays teaching style. In fact he actually criticises her teaching style. The conversation actually causes friction and tension between Mr Briggs and Colin. Mr Briggs thinks that Mrs Kay is being nice and soft to the children just so everyone likes her. Once the audience has heard the conversation they just feel more hatred towards Mr Briggs. This is because Mrs Kay is on the childrens side and wants to help them as much as she can unlike Mr Briggs who just wants to shout at them and discipline them. The audience has sympathy with Mrs Kay as she does actually want to help them but they also have a little bit of sympathy for Mr Briggs as he cannot see why Mrs Kay talks to the children like she does. They also have sympathy for him, as he cannot see why the children behave like they do. The characters and language used does contribute to the play, as it is the characters that make the play. The play is about the troubles that the children face while going on the trip. Most of these troubles are caused due to their bad behaviour and their bad behaviour is due to the fact that they are not disciplined or educated enough to realise that one day they could get into serious trouble if they keep on behaving like they do. This story portrays the actual life that many young poor children in Liverpool faced.