'A cream cracker under the settee\r'

'Dramatic monologue is a strain of lyric poem in which the eccentric expresses his/her emotions, actions, feelings or motives. It is written to reveal the website as well as the character.In melodramatic monologue, a single speaker who is non the poet utters the poem at a vituperative situation thereby adding depth to the character. In fact, we come to know about the non-finite aspects of the character by listening to the speaker. This was unquestionable during Victorian era and Robert Browning meliorate this form.In the dramatic monologue â€Å"A slash cracker under the settee”, Alan Bennett puts forrad his views on the society’s discourse of the elderly and the consequences thereof. He accomplishes this by describing an elderly lady’s view of the population and her solitariness.The play starts with Doris, the elderly lady academic session on the floor of her living room. She has locomote down while cleaning the photo of her late economise Wil fred. She strongly believes that the sphere of her time is much better than the present. She feels that hatful of her time were cleaner and more responsible for(p) than the people of today.This shows why she disapproves her domestic help, Zulema, who had non cleaned the photo in the first place. She enjoys her honest-to-goodness memories and the lovely time she had with her husband as can be seen by the counselling she talks to her dead husband’s octogenarian photographs. This as well shows that she is lonely and misses company.She feels she is â€Å" leave behind” by the people of her generation. This loneliness can also be attributed to the inadequacy of self-understanding and the understanding of others. Through the entire play, Doris attempts to give up herself from the so-called â€Å"corrupt” society of today.Doris has a compulsive obsession with cleanliness. In her younger days, she had forbidden her husband Wilfred from taking up any hobbies t hat could be messy. When they were younger, they had a muff that died during birth.The nurse had wrapped the baby in newspaper, which according to Doris was â€Å"dirty”. This reveals that she did non destiny her child, even though dead, to be associated with anything dirty. She is precise concerned about what her others would say if she is not spotlessly clean.This can be seen when the leaves from the bordering door blow into her garden and she says â€Å"I ought to put a sign on the gate, not my leaves”. She was scared that other her neighbors whitethorn not think high of her hygienics and so she asked her husband Wilfred to concrete the garden so that it would be easier to clean.While Doris is on the floor, she looks at her wedding photo and talks to her husband about her loneliness and how she was happier in her days. Her rapture in her younger days could be due to various reasons and one of the chief(prenominal) reasons would be the total independence and t he â€Å" convention of the roost” that she enjoyed. She also laments about the privation for â€Å" nursing home help” now. This is why she disapproves of her home help, Zulema.She cannot feign that she needs Zulema because that means she is forfeiting her independence. She feels that she is not dependent on Zulema for anything. She gets very picky when Zulema tells her â€Å"you’d be better in Stafford House”. Stafford House is the local old age people’s home.Though Zulema’s intentions were right, she said that because she wanted someone to perplex control of Doris’s life, Doris felt that as an intrusion into her independence. According to Doris, Stafford House represents supremacy by others and the acceptance of her dependence on someone. She cannot accept her own inability to have herself physically.This yearning for independence is very unadorned when a policeman comes to check on her. The policeman asks her, â€Å"Are yo u alright?” Doris replies, â€Å" zero(prenominal) I’m all right.” This also reflects that she has gotten herself into a mindset which makes it difficult for her to accept the hardships and difficulties of old age.\r\n'