Remember that you are being tested on your knowledge and understanding of the whole text from which you are expected to make relevant and judicious selections of detail to frame your answer.
Question 1
Look again at this extract from Act One Scene Two: our introduction to Tracey, Cynthia and Jessie. How does Nottage create our first impressions of the three of them and how any two of those impressions are developed at particular moments, later in the play?
Nottage plants the seeds of the conflict that will destroy the friendship group this early in the action. Butz (another subsidiary character who, Tracey later claims ‘tried to fuck me’) is moving elsewhere with the company and it is rumoured that his replacement will be appointed from the shop floor.
Jesse is very, very drunk: as she is almost whenever we see her in the play. We learn of some important possible consequences of this.
- Her words to Oscar ‘are we together’ are revealing: of loneliness, lack of self- esteem and independence (as Tracey remarks): as does Stan’s response.
- She arrives at work drunk (or very badly hung over): a danger for herself and for others, especially given Olstead’s record on health and safety.
- She is reacting to the break- up of her marriage (the sadness is reinforced in 1.7, her birthday party when she is, for once, coherent).…
