Gary And Sue Anne example essay topic

EXAMPLE ESSAY QUESTION: With reference to Gary's House, discuss the techniques devised to realise the playwright's artistic and social goals. ANSWER: Gary's House illustrates many of the issues and predicaments confronted by Australians today, especially those people who are marginalised by society. The play primarily does this through a style which can be described as selective realism, with naturalistic dialogue counterbalancing the archetypal characters and overtly theatrical devices. The playwright's humanism infuses the play. All the characters represent the 'little Aussie battler' who tries, by his / her own efforts, to rise to a higher social class and survive in a harsh land. The isolation of the bush setting is a metaphor for the emotional and social state of the characters at the start of the play.

Gary and Sue-Anne are the first two 'ragged edges' (Act II scene 8) who come together through mutual need to build a community. While Gary, Christine and Dave at first appear dissimilar, it is soon apparent that their roles are parallel, each surviving a dysfunctional family upbringing. Gary in particular might also be said to represent the disenfranchised. Like many of today's refugees and yesterday's Aborigines, he was institutionalised as a child, dependent on government agencies and separated from his family.

His struggle to build a home suggests the struggle of so many to create stability and find a meaning to life. His dream is to establish the perfect family he lacked as a child. His apparent failure mirrors the breakdown of the traditional nuclear family in contemporary Australia. His final reappearance suggests, perhaps, survival through adapting new pathways and accepting the need to build a community built on non-traditional ties. The building of the house is a physical and visual metaphor for Gary's dreams and his emotional / social relationships... and those of the other characters caught up by his vision. When he suicides in despair, believing Sue-Anne has left him his and his dream has been extinguished, the house 'looks deserted, abandoned' (start Act II), finding its parallel in the 'damaged, abandoned' house (Act II scene 11) when Christine too finds her plans are spoilt when Sue-Anne chooses to leave, taking Clint to the Central Coast.

Christine assaults the house when her initial ideal plan is ruined. When she adapts to a more realistic plan, the house building resumes. The house completion at the end of Act II is mirrored in Gary's 'resurrection', his vision accomplished - if a little modified - and complete family relationships established. The baby is another metaphor for the dream and the relationships.

The quickening at the end of scene marks the closeness of Gary and Sue-Anne at that point of the play. Other buildings further depict the state of the characters, notably the motel room in Act 1 scene 5 'somewhere'. The vagueness of the locale reiterates Christine's being in limbo, caught between classes as she is dressed in city clothes but 'keeping her voice rough, in defiant chip-on-the-shoulder style' and isolated in her single room with no home, no relationship, no family except on paper. This is reiterated in the parallel scene in Act 2.

The motel is, fittingly, a transitional place for one on the move towards or from a relationship or self realisation. The pub represents socialisation, as we see Dave and Christine tentatively starting a relationship. Light is a further theatrical device used in the play. Following its religious and traditional association with goodness and warmth, the stage directions often show it is dark when relationships falter (start of Act I scene 2 and when Gary dies and the house is abandoned) but that it is daytime or a gas lamp is lit when the house / relationships are being built or repaired. At the end of Act I, the torch beam shining on Dave's face suggests hope in his intervention until he 'goes out into the darkness' (as he has done in the previous scene, when, significantly, he has rejected Christine.) It is notable that the stage directions only specify light or darkness, night or day when a climactic emotional moment is reached. It is explicit at the end of the play when, for the first time, the setting is 'a perfect, brilliant day', the house being completed, the relationships established.

Dualism is a feature of the play. Dave's walk away from Christine and from Gary at the end of Act I is noted above. Two scenes in pubs, two scenes in motel rooms, two women, two families established, two houses - that of Gary and that of Dave. Ms. Oswald contrasts the different responses to pain and failure: Gary's anger and the sublimation of that anger and energy in a positive ambition; Dave's avoidance of hurting or being hurt by remaining a traveller and an observer rather than a participant. Sue-Anne is dependent on others. Christine prefers to be independent.

Gary takes the chain-saw from Sue-Anne in Act 1, Dave the sledge hammer from Christine in Act 2. Sue-Anne says that if God exists, he sent Gary to her in Act I scene 8; in Act II, scene 10, she says to Vince that "If there's really a God I reckon he sent you to me and Clint". In Act I, scene 6, Gary carries Sue-Anne in his arms, an action echoed in Act II, scene 8 when Christine carries her back to the tent. The dualism emphasises the key issues of the play: is it better to remain isolated and insular or should relationships be hazarded? Is it better to strive towards a goal and risk failure or to accept the status quo? As well as a structural device to give unity and balance, the dualism works in two disparate ways.

Sometimes the parallelism emphasises similarities - such as Gary, then Christine caring for Sue-Anne. At other times the differences are accentuated, most obviously in the shocking death of Gary at the end of Act I meeting its inverse in the end of Act II with his metaphysical resurrection. Either may be described as a coup de theatre and the climax of its respective act. This illustrates how well issues and techniques are integrated in the play. Oswald considers the question of male suicide in Australian society and suggests that inflexibility and the uncompromising determination to cling to one's ideal can be admirable but destructive.

She salutes the need to have goals and, as she has said (SMH interview), believes that little snatches of happiness can be gained if people are prepared to compromise and, most importantly, reach out to each other... or, as E.M. Forster wrote 'only connect. Throughout the play, the writer's compassion for all the characters and their plight is apparent. The characters are familiar and close to stereotypes but each are given enough contradictions and details to make them emerge as individually interesting. Sue-Anne might appear to be typical of the media depiction of the teenage unmarried mother, self-centred and negligent but her refusal to smoke while pregnant suggests some sense of responsibility and it is no real surprise that, despite her threats to abort the baby or get it adopted, she does neither.

Her apologies for her bad temper offset its effect and her back pain is real. Christine is clearly not the hard and heartless feminist she first appears, soon showing a willingness to forgo her own inheritance in order to protect Gary and his dream. Vince is far more assertive and perceptive than he first appears. With the exception of Sue-Anne, characters grow and evolve, with Dave eventually discarding his pose as 'a conscientious objector in the world of relationships'. The play's greatest strength may be the naturalistic language which sounds realistic and unaffected but economically conveys character, emotion and subtext.

Sentences are short, often fragmented and highly colloquial. Sue-Anne's working class slang contrasts with Christine's more educated speech. The roughness of the latter is assumed, (Act I scene 5) an echo of the hard exterior which conceals a vulnerable and caring person. Dave's laconic speech reflects his laid back character. He is articulate - a symbol of his control - except on the rare occasions when he discusses his family or his feelings. Then his language falters ("But the thing is, it's not like- I mean, I see what's going on for other people", Act I scene 4).

Gary's language, while often uncouth and ungrammatical, is forceful, emotional and direct, making the rare use of metaphor at the end of Act I particularly effective ("She's torn out my heart"). In a non dogmatic manner, Ms. Oswald explores the changing roles of women and families today. Sue-Anne may not be married at the start of the play but she is as dependent on her man to be her carer and provider as any housewife in the 1950's. She is resolutely 'feminine' in her inability or disinclination to do any physical work and Gary clearly approves. Like Vince, he enjoys being needed. Christine has a business career and is prepared to build the house by herself, having faith in her ability to learn and do as well as any man.

She is in her thirties and single. In this she is typical of the majority of women in Australia today... including her ultimate decision to have a family and settle down in a house. Significantly, there is no suggestion that she will marry Dave (unlike Sue-Anne and Vince) and it is evident that in their partnership, they will be mutually dependent, symbolized by the merger of the two properties. Both work together on the building of the house (Act II, scene 14), literally and metaphorically. No judgment is implied. Indeed the play seems to ratify the right of both women to choose their own role and path, both families at the end having an equal chance of success.

Or failure. While the final moments suggest an unexpected optimism, this is a play which avoids absolutes. Moments of joy are constantly undercut as if the darkness always threatens, the first impression of the picture perfect final scene quickly modified - the baby cries, Sue-Anne whinges, Dave avoids work. Mate ship is also central to the play. Dave constantly calls Gary 'mate', but fails him in his time of need. To some degree, his decision to complete the house may be seen as his attempt to compensate for this betrayal.

The play's naturalism is offset by the play's overt theatrical elements. Thus happiness and, comedy and tragedy are constantly juxtaposed in the play. 'Gary's House' by Debra Oswald.