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Mother’s Day
What does Mrs Fitzgerald find the cause of Mrs Pearson’s misery?
Mrs Fitzgerald thinks that Mrs Pearson is responsible for spoiling her husband and children. It does neither good to her nor her children. She runs after them all the time. She takes their orders as if she were their servant in the house. She stays at home every night while they go out enjoying themselves. She should assert herself and become the mistress and boss of the family.
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This play, written in the 1950s, is a humorous and satirical depiction of the status of the mother in the family.
(i) What are the issues it raises?
(ii) Do you think it caricatures these issues or do you think that the problems it raises are genuine? How does the play resolve the issues? Do you agree with the resolution?
If you were to write about these issues today what are some of the incidents, examples and problems that you would think of as relevant?
Is Drama a good medium for conveying a social message? Discuss.
Read the play out in parts. Enact the play on a suitable occasion.
Discuss in groups, plays or films with a strong message of social reform that you have watched.
Contrast the two ladies: Mrs Pearson and Mrs Fitzgerald.
What picture of Mrs Pearson do you form in the opening of the play and why?
How does Mrs Fitzgerald tell Mrs Pearson’s fortune?
Why doesn’t Mrs Pearson become ‘the boss’ of her family as Mrs Fitzgerald advises her to be?
Or
What is Mrs Fitzgerald’s advice to Mrs Pearson?
What does Mrs Fitzgerald find the cause of Mrs Pearson’s misery?
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