Our Day Out by Willy Russell :: English Literature

OUR DAY OUTTHE EFFECTS OF CHARACTER IN performance THE USE OF DRAMATIC DEVICES andTHE LAYERS OF MEANING IN LANGUAGE, IDEAS AND THEMESWriters be influenced by the historical prison terms in which they live.Every solar day of their lives, what they say and the way they act isinfluenced by the time in which they live.The 70s influenced Willy Russell in his writing. There are manyexamples of this in Our Day Out such as the style of the fair and theshop, the way the characters speak and the things that are going on,for example the description of the economic slump at the time.One of the reasons for Britains industry being in decline was, thatit was unable to be competitive on price against other countries whohad new technology. The technology increased productivity and reducedcosts through the use of less labour. As a result, some of the importantindustries in Britain had great financial difficulty and had to closedown or reduce the work force causing a loss in jobs and juicyunemploy ment. This caused poverty and meant that people could notafford decent property and had to move into council homes.Class differences occurred, dividing people who had money and decenthomes from people with little money and despicable homes or no home at all.Willy Russells writing was inspired by experiences when he was ateacher at a comprehensive school. Whilst he was a teacher at theschool, he accompanied a teacher of a remedial department on a trip toConwy castle and a zoo. At the last minute a deputy head ofdisciplinarian behaviour also joined the party creating a potentialrecipe for disaster. During the course of the day the deputy headrelaxed and enjoyed himself, only to revert to his usual self at theend of the day. In doing so, he destroyed all the positiveachievements of the day.This play is virtually a progress class, which go on a trip for the firsttime. Mrs Kay cares for the children a great deal and just wants themto have fun as broad as they dont hurt anyone or thems elves. Thedeputy head who joins the trip unexpectedly changes this and believesthey should be quiet and not have as much fun in order to learn.As the day goes on the children get up to all sorts of mischiefincluding stealing. Eventually the deputy head finds out about thisand his attitude towards the kids deteriorated in time further. Mr Briggsjust wants to get them back to school as soon as possible.When put in a situation however, with one of the children threatening