My Boy Jack

Follows the lives of Rudyard Kipling, his son John Kipling - otherwise known as Jack - Carrie Kipling, and Elsie Kipling.
1. Set in 1913-1933, expresses the various different stages of the First World War, and the Kipling's grief after John dies.
Written and performed in 1997, eighty years after Wilfred Owen was writing his war poetry.
1. Owen's poetry focuses more on the suffering of the soldiers who were alive during the First World War, because Owen had first hand experience with suffering due to his mass exposure to the Front Lines and his stay at Craiglockhart - a hospital for shell shocked soldiers during the First World War. Owen's perspective on the War is personal, he was actively involved in the War and had suffered through a variety of shocking experiences which led him to have a break down. Owen has a better understanding on the horrors of War because he was writing his poetry whilst he was experiencing everything. Whereas, Haig's play has some distance on the War
2. Haig focuses on the suffering of the soldiers, along with the suffering of those left behind. Haig's play mainly focuses on the aftermath on a family when a loved one doesn't return from War, and the prolonged effects it can have on a person and a family unit. Haig's perspective is more subjective, because he wasn't alive during the First World War and therefore didn't experience the fighting or the grief of a nation first hand.
Themes
1. War
  1. Shell shock
2. Death
3. Loss
4. Comradeship
5. Bravery
6. Suffering
  1. Mentally
  2. Physically
7. Family
8. Paternal Bonds
9. Propaganda
  1. Influence
  2. Nationalism
10. Gender Roles
Quotes
1. 'Every young man who chooses to remain at home, must be shunned by his community.'
  1. 'But the man just plowed on regardless did they?'
    1. 'The bullets are all around me - Bees! Bees! - a swarm of angry bees. Buzzin' an' racin' past the ear.'
2. 'We've had four hours sleep this last forty-eight hours.'
  1. 'What our country has achieved in the last 150 years is unique. We have build up, painstakingly built up, a family of nations...'
    1. 'The bottom of his face is... shot away.'
      1. (BLACK OUT)
    2. 'It's just me. An' the Lieutenant's cryin' with the pain...'
      1. But then I think - how dare you, how dare you, how could you, condemn your son to oblivion.'
      2. (He drops his head and cries.)
    3. 'I'm so relieved that you see the death of our only son as such a positive and uplifting experience.'
      1. (He has aged dramatically. He looks smaller and frailer.'
    4. Jack was eighteen years and six weeks old. He died in the rain, he couldn't see a thing, he was alone, in pain, you can't persuade me there is any glory in that.'
      1. 'For nothing, for nothing, for nothing.'
3. 'Well frankly Father it will be your fault if Jack is killed.'
  1. (He is seeing the chlorine gas, heavier than air, moving along, just above the ground.)

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	Created by Shani Casey about 7 years ago