A Bed Among The Lentils Analysis

The opening stage directions suggest that Susan is in a pretty bad condition. A vicar’s wife Susan is described as “thin”; this could suggest that years of abuse towards herself from drinking could have made her ill. The opening stage directions also describe Susan as “nervous”. Again, probably due to her alcoholism see seems to be constantly on edge at being found out whilst describing her true emotions in her monologue. The last bit of information that the opening stage directions give us, is “probably smokes”. This is something that tends to be incorporated into an alcoholic’s life, as many deem that an alcoholic also smokes which give a visual image of the complete look of a troubled person.

The language that Susan uses reveals a lot about her age, social class and attitudes. Her attitudes towards Geoffrey’s sermons are one that seems to not care about. For example she describes the sermon on sex as “marriage gives the OK to sex is the gist of it”. The key part of the phrase is “gist of it”. This shows us Susan has very little or no interest in her husband’s sermons as she either doesn't like or have heard them before.  The phrase “keeps a bottle of cough mixture in his cupboard in case any of the choirboys get chesty”; suggests that she is older than many people think. This is because of the keyword of “choirboys”. Nowadays, there are many girls in church choirs but because it’s only boys it would suggest that women are not on an equal oath like the men in that time. Susan’s social class is also one that can be picked out. Although the vicar’s wife; who is regarded as very important but second only to the vicar, her social class is quite far down. Susan is not upper class or lower class but because of the alcoholism and her affair with Mr Ramesh,  she is considered a lower class person or a lowlife because she can’t be trusted with herself.

 The only bit of sadness that really can be heard in her voice is, on page 41 paragraph 2 on the transcript. Susan’s voice changes slightly to as if she is going to cry about Mr Ramesh leaving.  The phrase “I went down there on Sunday”, tells us that she really misses Mr Ramesh because even though he has packed up and moved to Preston she still can’t keep herself away from the shop where she met him. The other bit of sadness that is conveyed is her sarcastic response of “terrific”. Although it doesn’t seem as if Susan is sad the way she responded to her husband saying “that drunken flower arranger was my wife”, suggests that Susan would have rather not wanted her husband to do a sermon about her in front of everybody she knew in a place of holy worship.

All of the examples used, are not the most obvious ones to describe but they all link into each other. Susan’s attitudes suggest that she doesn't care, which is true but we see her care a little bit when Mr Ramesh has moved to Preston and when her husband, Geoffrey is conducting a sermon about her to those that she knows. Complied with her appearance in the opening stage directions this gives a visual image of a typical person with many problems in their life.