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The play 'Blue Remembered Hills' is set in an almost idyllic locality with the fields of long luscious grass and the surreal forest of Dean nearby. The backdrop to the action is World War Two and there is an undercurrent of violence, the adults in this rural community are focusing on war, so they don't have complete control of their children. It is almost as if conflict and brutality have become an accepted part of everyday life. Ironically the children are engaged in a war of their own and certainly the afternoon degenerates into violence and cruelty.
The children's microcosm is almost a mirror of the adult macrocosm, but in their world their morality is not strong enough to guide them, so they lose their innocence, on this tragic day in 1943. Potter has used adults to enhance the parts of children because his dramatic plot requires intense feeling and he does not believe that such young actors would be able to give enough depth and emotion into the play, under the stress of the cameras. Another reason for the adult actors is so that Potter can exaggerate and magnify the mistakes and to reflect the immature behaviour of children. The actors are not allowed reflection or eloquence on their mistakes, it helps the audience to accept and appreciate the true meanings of the play. This climatic piece of writing clearly shows us that not all children are as sweet and innocent as their biased parents may think. The children find death and destruction intriguing, and Dennis Potter emphasises this.
He has encrusted the play with examples such as fires, violence, and the instinct to bully and harm. Potter portrays an image of Donald before we have seen his physical form. In scene 2, Peter and Willie talk of him as if they dislike him, but they also show compassion towards him. Potter creates an image of a small thin, abused boy.
I saw her his with a shovel. Right round the you. From this single sentence we discover a lot about Donald's life. Potter reveals that Donald's mother not only hits for discipline, but she also abuses him, and she does not care what the rest of the community thinks. Ironically even before weve met Donald we start to factors images in our minds. Potters use of stage direction is also very important in scene 2.
They suggest that the children are not sure about Donald, they understand hes different, a slight outcast, he is ostracized, but they only play and talk about him when they are bored. They fall silent. Then as if to break a tension they cannot understand, Peter runs on ahead suddenly, and stoops over. This quote also shows how quickly the children move on from one event to another, and it also give a short pause for the audience to reflect on the dramatic conversation that they have just heard. Potter has used Donald to unlock difficult and controversial issues on neglect and child abuse by allowing the audience to see the effects of neglect ion and by giving them the opportunity to see the harsh reality that many young children go through.
In scene 5 Dennis Potter has Introduced Donald in the stage directions as splay-footed, anaemic looking with nasty scabs around his mouth Here Potter has created immediate sympathy for Donald as we read the script. The audience watching the play however, dont get this second introduction and so when they see him they are horrified and the camera close-ups clearly show how abused Donald is. Donald appears to be quite confident amongst the two girls, Angela and Audrey. While playing a game of house, Donald argues and confronts them by using foul language and strong, almost violent body language. The three children are playing with Dina. A chocolate coloured doll, Audrey tells Angela to smack her one in the chops and Donald will not allow smacking in his house.
This shows that he is abused at home and wont let it happen to Dina. Donald appears to be very much in control of the situation and is showing signs of domination, until he acts as if he has cut his thumb off and plain Audrey takes on the role of the nurse, taking the centre of attention away from the pretty Angela. By the end of the scene Angela and Audrey have manipulated each other and Donald, so that a fun game of house has been turned into a frenzied slaughter of Donald's confidence and trust. The two girls become animals as they herd Donald and close in on him, a very disturbing scene for the watching audience.
This is an example of how cruel children can be towards each other when left unsupervised. Donald has only been physically in the play for one scene and already his confidence has diminished dramatically. He has been forced into a disturbed mental state, and is now not only a victim to child abuse by his mother but he is also being bullied by the few people who he thought he could trust, his friends. But does Dennis Potter want us to feel sorry for Donald, or does he want to encourage us to think that Donald deserves to be shunned by the girls?
Potter has created a negative image of Donald, he swears in front of the girls instead of being a polite gentleman, he shows violence towards them and he is obsessed with blood. This combined with the fact that he is abused, causes the audience to have mixed feelings and to be apprehensive towards Donald. Potter wants the play to be a rollercoaster of emotions for the audience, and his first stage of this is to make the audience to feel both empathy towards and dislike Donald at the same time In the stage directions for scene 7 Potter describes the way in which Donald is sat as huddled up and in a foetal position. This is a visual image as how Donald is a withdrawn and insecure character within the play. This is only a short scene, but one of the most powerful and distressing in the play.
This is the first sign that Donald is at the beginning of a mental breakdown. Donald doesnt appear again until scene 13. He has remained in the barn since Audrey and Angela's bullying towards him. This scene clearly shows that Donald is a lot less confident around Peter than he was around the girls at the beginning of scene 5. When Peter initially enters the barn he does not realise that Donald is hiding behind a wooden support beam.
Donald coughs nervously to attract Peters attention. At the beginning of the scene Donald shows...
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Research essay sample on Stage Directions Child Abuse
