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| Character | Maggie Cather | |
|---|---|---|
| Gender | Female | |
| Age Range(s) | Young Adult (20-35) | |
| Type of monologue / Character is | Angry, Scolding, Lamenting, Complaining, Reminiscing life story/Telling a story | |
| Type | Dramatic | |
| Year | 1921 | |
| Period | 20th Century | |
| Genre | Romance, Family, Drama | |
| Description | Maggie Cather remembers her shame for being a single mother | |
| Location | One ACT play | |
Summary
This is a one act play that takes place in Donaghreagh, a small North-Irish village. There are 5 characters in the play, William and Jane Cather, an old married couple, and their daughter Maggie. Then there is Samuel and Henry Hinde, father and son. The play starts with Samuel Hinde approaching Mr and Mrs Cather in their house. He tells them their son Henry is waiting outside and would like to talk to Maggie. He has come all the way from Liverpool to make up for a wrong he did to her ten years before, that is he knocked her up and then refused to marry her. Maggie eventually arrives and Henry asks her to marry him. He tells her he thinks is the will of God.
In this monologue Maggie refuses to marry him and remembers the shame she felt when he left her and the way she was treated by people in her village because he abandoned with a bastard child.
In this monologue Maggie refuses to marry him and remembers the shame she felt when he left her and the way she was treated by people in her village because he abandoned with a bastard child.
Written by Administrator
| Excerpt |
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| MAGGIE CATHER: Listen, Henry Hinde. All the time you were away in Liverpool where nobody knew you, I was here where everybody knew me. Do you know what that means? People staring at me, and turning up their noses at me? There was nothing but contempt for me at first. I was a bad woman, and I wasn't asked nowhere. Fellows in the street treated me like dirt beneath their feet. They spoke to me as if I was a bad woman. And all that time you were in Liverpool, and were thought a lot of. It wasn't fair. And it wasn't me only. I mind once I was coming down an entry, and I saw a lot of children tormenting the child. He was standing in the middle of them, and they were making him say things after them. I heard them saying, "What are you, Willie?" And then they made him say, "I'm a wee bastard!" Aw, if I could have laid hands on you then, Henry, I would have throttled you. [MRS CATHER: But sure, it's all over now. ] MAGGIE CATHER: Aye, they don't treat me with contempt now. I've lived that down. They just pity me now. Sometimes when I go past their doors, an old woman'll hear me passing, and ask who it is, and they always say, "It's only poor Maggie Cather." I could thole their contempt better nor their pity, but I didn't run away from either of them. I faced it all, and I've brought up the child as good as any of them. And now when I've bore the hardest of it, you come back to marry me. Maybe, you'll be ordering me about, and bossing the child. I'm to do what you tell me. I've to love, honour and obey you. What for, Henry, that's what I'd like to know? |
