Alan Bennett's Talking Heads

Alan Bennett's "Talking Heads"

"Talking heads" by Alan Bennett is a collection of monologues in which

the audience are showed into the life of a character and given an

insight into the character's personality and situation.peoples lives

are portrayed in comic ways leaving the audience feeling sympathy and

guilt for the character in laughing at their misfortune. Monologues

are a long speech made by one person.

This style of script is really effective and has a powerful effect on

the audience. These monologues were written for television

broadcasting, programmes presented in this way are put under the genre

of tragi-comedy. This style of script has a dramatic effect upon the

audience because from one statement , several emotions arise, for

example Irene writing to someone informing them that their wife is a

prostitute it is comic that she would care to write a letter about

something that does not concern her of this sort of information but in

another way it displays pathos because she is has enough time to spare

to have such an interest in finding out information such as this.

The talking heads monologues often give an exaggerated story largely

influenced by the environment and era in which the characters live in.

For example Doris' jaded views of nursing homes which are perhaps

stereotypically nursing homes from the era in which she brought up in.

This cynical view also emphasises the lack of respect in the ironic

way that an elderly person has been influenced by negative views of

the older generation.

Within this essay I am going to analyse the talking heads scripts and

bring about my point of views as well as also using my background

knowledge on the era and several other topics which seem to o...

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...eotype people which displays

irony as they fit into 3 groups of people which are well known to be

stereotyped: porn stars, o.a.p's and interfering busy-bodies. "When I

saw his vest it had electrician written all over it." Lesley says on

meeting a man with a tattoo. I think these stereotypical associations

are made due to their ignorance towards different cultures, classes

and race.

As a conclusion to this essay I feel that Alan Bennett has created

these monologues effectively through the use of pathos which is

present through all the monologues. He enforces feeling brought about

by the pathos with metaphors as well as cliché phrases.The television

episodes are simple but effective in setting an atmosphere appropriate

to the monologue. He brings the characters to a level which we can all

relate to in some way which makes the impact of tragedy far deeper.