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Javiera Carrera

Professor Carola Oyarzún

LET1346 – Drama

October 1, 2015

Monologues and their importance in The Caretaker

Into The Caretaker can be found many elements that form part of the play and work

together as a whole, as for example the space, silences, and determined objects and their

importance to the characters. Besides them it can be easily found some themes that keep

appearing during the play, as family, loneliness and race, which is why in this report will be

explained the importance of some of them in the final monologue of the second act, in which

Aston tells his story, using for it direct quotations from the play.

The play takes place in London close to 1950’s, into a room full of things and to which

Davies goes to live for a while with Aston. One day, Aston recommends a café to Davies, which

he used to frequent, and after that, his mind goes back in time to explain us and to Davies what

happened to him.

He used to talk with people in that café and in the factory, because there people “used to

listen, whenever I … had anything to say.” But the same time he started to have hallucinations, or

what looked like it to him which caused him to be taken to a hospital, where after his mother has

permitted the hospital, they started doing an electroshock treatment to him as therapy, making

him have since then problems walking and thinking, as he expresses: “my thoughts … had

become very slow … I couldn’t think at all … I couldn’t … get… my thoughts… together…

uuuhh… I could… never quite get it… together.”

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At the beginning of his monologue is known the loneliness that he felt, this need that did

him go to places with unknown people, to whom he could express whatever he wanted to,

because they listened, and for him they understood, this isolation with the world, or this lack of

engagement with society is shown throughout the play with the miscommunication between the

characters and their impossibility of being out without feeling safe. At the end of the monologue

he recognizes that he should be dead, but that now he is feeling better, even though he does not

“talk to people now”, giving us again this feeling of isolation and division from the world.

The family also plays an important part here, showing the absurdity in which his mother

just accepts the electroshock treatment in him, something that he explicitly ask her not to; but

also family is seem as a burden (the way in which Mick feels this necessity to protect Aston) and

as something positive, with the thought of Mick living together with Aston without having to

think about it, and the smile that they share almost at the end of the play.

As was stated before, this play has many important elements and themes which can be

read and interpreted through its pages and dialogues; some of them were presented here, in a very

brief way, into a monologue given for one of the characters, showing that these themes that keep

appearing during the play can be seen in each part for separate and in the whole. Isolation and

family were the themes presented, but during the play there are many glimpses of the importance

of race for Davies for example, which can be seen in detail and give us more information about

the character and his behavior.