ACTIVITIES
ON THE EXCERPT "THE CARETAKER"
*in
italics you have
explanations and keys, in blue the aim of the activities
Timing: 2
periods of 50
minutes
Pre-reading activities
Total timing: 10 minutes
1. Plenary
activity
The teacher
asks to the students what is their idea about insanity
What does it mean to be
mentally sane?
What does it mean to be
insane?
What is the electric shock
treatment?
AIM: the aim is to make
students think about the
issues of mental health and insanity in order to make them better
approach
the themes of Aston's monologue:
2.
Plenary activity
The
teacher explains to the class that the extract is a monologue taken
from "The
Caretaker" at the end of ACT II and
briefly summarizes the plot of the play.
"The
Caretaker": PLOT
The play opens in a room
full of old things. Aston, a thirty-year-old man, lives there and is
now giving
hospitality to Davies, an old tramp who has nowhere to go, no shoes, no
identity papers, not even a definite name. Aston shows him solidarity
and
offers him to stay in his room. Mick is Aston's brother and the real
owner of the house but he does not
live there. Aston should restore the
entire building for his brother and proposes Davies to be the
caretaker. One
day Aston reveals Davies his past.
AIM: the
aim is to give students information to
let them understand the title and to make them better contextualize
Aston's
monologue within the play.
Timing: 10
minutes
While-reading
activities
Total timing: 90 minutes
AIM: students read the
text and do specific
exercises in order to identify the main features of the text, with
particular reference to the plot.
1. Individual work
Students
read the text
silently
2. Work in
pairs
The
teacher gives photocopies
with the activities to the students. Answer to the following sentences
saying
if they are true of false (write after each sentence T for true and F
for
false). Go back to the text if you need to.
- In the past Aston used to go to a
café
- Aston used to talk too much with people
- He used to have a kind of
hallucinations
- People started talking
with him
- People tried to understand Aston
- Aston escaped from the hospital
- The head doctor told Aston that he
wasn't ill
- Aston's mother didn't give the
permission for the treatment
- At night 'they' started
to do the treatment to the brain of the patients
-
The patients were
subjected to the electric shock
treatment
- Most of the patients do passively
suffered the treatment
- Aston didn't try to rebel against the
doctors
- Aston was subjected to the treatment
- Astondidn't suffer from diseases after that treatment
Timing: 15
minutes (included open check
at end)
3. Work in
pairs
Make a
list of the physical
and mental troubles Aston suffered from when he went out of the
hospital.
PHYSICAL
TROUBLES: couldn't
walk very well; couldn't hear what people were saying; couldn't look to
the
right or to the left; couldn't keep upright if he turned his head
round; had
headaches
MENTAL
TROUBLES :
thoughts
became very slow; couldn't think at all; couldn't get his thoughts
together
4. Work in
pairs
Tick the
correct answer:
What does Aston
avoid to do now?
√
Talking to
people Going
to hospitals
Walk alone
What has he often
thought of doing?
What does he want
to do first?
Find the doctor √ Build the shed in the
garden
Go to the café
Timing: 10
minutes (included open check
at end)
AIM: the aim of the following activities
is to
encourage students through specific questions and the help of the
teacher to
interpret the text
5.
Students work in groups of
4-5 each and answer to the following questions:
Aston says
that he had no
real hallucinations. Do you think that Aston could have been dangerous
for the
other people? Why?
(In my
opinion, Aston could
not have been dangerous for other people because when he describes his
kind of
hallucinations he says that he could see things "clearly" and
everything was
"quiet": it seems his were very peaceful visions, as if he was a sort
of mystic
visionary).
Aston
says that "they" took him to the hospital: whom do you think he refers
to?
(It is not
clear from his
speech. I think "they" could have been his mother with some relatives,
or the
people he used to talk with at the café or in the factory, or
maybe someone of
these people called the doctors took him to the hospital).
Why?
(Because
Aston felt
completely misunderstood, they treated him like an insane man and he
had to
suffer terrible pains because of that).
What is
the function of
lightening during Aston's monologue?
(At the beginning
of Aston's speech the room is full of light. During
Aston's monologue the room grows darker and the fade down of the light
is
slowly gradual and unobtrusive to follow the progress of Aston's story.
At the
end the light is only on Aston, to put in evidence his isolation and
his
loneliness in a gloomy world which did not understand him and treated
him with
cruelty. This use of lightening is highly symbolic and it gives a
powerful
dramatic effect.)
AIM: the aim is to
arouse students' interest and let
them discuss giving their own personal opinion
Aston was
probably more
sensitive and imaginative than the majority of people.
In general, what do you think people's
attitude towards the ones who are "out of the norm" is?
curiosity
√
fear
contempt
indifference
What
do you think was Aston's relationship with his mother like?
(Aston's
relationship with
his mother was very cold because she did not visit him
at the hospital/she did not even try to talk with him to understand
his will and opinions/When asked for it, she simply signed the form to
give the
doctors the permission to do to her son the brain treatment).
(On the
other side, we may
also think that his mother did not understand at all the situation and
that her
son was in danger. She was probably a humble woman from the working
class
(Aston was a worker) who trusted what the doctors said and was ashamed
of
having a son considered mentally disturbed).
The teacher gives
explanation: So we find again the theme of
the difficulty of communication and
the theme of the difficulty of human
relationship. Aston was let alone in his solitude even by his
mother.
Timing: 15 minutes (included open check at
end)
SECOND
LESSON
Aston
talks about "bars on
the window" and that "they used
to shine a torch over the beds every half hour". What do these
images
remind you?
(A prison)
The
doctors used to apply the
electroshock to patients at night: in your opinion, why?
(Possible
answers: they used
to apply it at night because during the night nobody visits the
hospital and
the doctors are let alone with their patients. At night
nobody from the outside (parents, relatives,
friends) can see or hear what the doctors are doing, so the latter are
free to
ill-treat their patients and to commit acts of violence).
Most
patients did not fight
to escape the electroshock but they accepted it passively: in your
opinion,
why?
(they
accepted it passively
because after their permanence in the hospital they were already
resigned to
their destiny. They could have had a lot of different reasons for this:
probably the first patients subjected to the electroshock did not know
what the
treatment was, maybe some of them were really suffering and they just
trusted
the doctors, others were perhaps absolutely indifferent to their own
destiny).
After the
electroshock, Aston
got out of the hospital. Do you think that he could lead a "normal"
life? Why?
(When
Aston got out of the
hospital it was impossible for him to lead a "normal" life because both
his
mental and his physical health had been seriously damaged by the
electroshock.
With all his physical and mental troubles Aston could not but have
great
difficulties in working and in dealing with people and the only thing
he could
do was staying alone).
Aston "laid
everything out
in order" in his room. In your opinion, why did order become so
important
for him?
(order
became so important
for him because he was desperately attempting to find a new way of
reorganizing
his life as well as his ideas: this new attitude to order may be the
expression
of his search for a new order in his life. On the other side, we may
also
consider that order represents the reverse of that excess of
imagination and
sensitivity that caused him to go to the hospital: Aston is now trying
to have
control on himself).
Aston says
"I should have
been dead, I should have died". What does it mean?
1) his
life after the
electroshock had become worse than death,
2) he
perceived that the best
part of him ¨C his imagination- had been stifled by the electroshock ,
3) he felt
so badly that he
was like a living dead man.
Do you
think that Aston will
ever go back to find the man who did him the electroshock? Why?
(Aston
will ever go back to
find that man because with his last sentence about the shed in the
garden he
reveals his inability to work out a plan or a strategy to realize this
wish,
which remains something vague and imprecise. The electroshock seems to
have
killed in him all real passions and desires).
Aston
said that he "talked too much" and that was a "mistake".
Think
also about "The Dumb Waiter": do you think that language may be a
dangerous
tool? Why?
(open
answer)
In your
opinion, what is
Pinter trying to suggest about mental health and insanity?
(Pinter is
saying that it is
very difficult to state precisely what the borders between them are. In
many
ways Aston seems much wiser than many other people, for instance when,
despite
the damages provoked by the electroshock, he shows that he understood
the
tragedy that happened to him. Pinter is trying to say that in a world
of
conformity, all people who show a different attitude may be considered
insane
and must be "cured" to "live like the others": it does not matter the
price
they have to pay.
Aston may also represent the power of imagination
in a world where men have adopted hyper-rationality as their icon: we
may
think, for instance, about all the questions and the examination that
Aston had
to undergo.
The
problem lies again in the
difficulty of communication: Aston thought that the other people
could
understand his being different but they were only scared of his
unconformity)
Total timing:
20 minutes
AIM: the aim is to focus
students attention on language
style
Is Aston
precise or vague
when he describes what happened to him? Underline a sentence to justify
your
answer.
(Aston is
quite vague when he
describes his story; the sentences "...someone must have said
something" or " ...
he said that "I got something, some complaint".)
Aston's
speech is interspersed with gaps and dots: what is
their function in this passage?
(express
Aston's difficulty
to find the right words to tell his story, especially when he should
use more
definite words to describe feelings, objects or situations.
Gaps and dots are also a way
to emphasize the effect of the electroshock on Aston: while before he
used to
talk a lot, now he cannot easily express himself because his thoughts
have
become slower.)
What
emotion does this
description create?
calm
√
pain
indifference
Do you
think that Aston and
the other people ('they') were really communicating or not? Why?
(Aston and
the other people
were not really communicating because only Aston used to talk . They
always
listened and they did not understand him.)
Aston's
description is mainly
vague throughout the monologue, apart when he describes the
electroshock
machine and procedure. Why is Aston precise about it?
(Aston
remembers everything
about it because he was one of the last to have electroshock done to
him and,
as he says, he could see what they did to the others several times.
While Aston
waited for his turn to come, he must have suffered terribly thinking
about his
own destiny and what was going to happen. The electric shock treatment
was a
real tragedy for him because he was among the few who understood what
sort of
violence it was and he cannot forget it because it destroyed his life.)
What
is Davies' role during the monologue? If Davies is there, why do we
consider
Aston's speech a monologue and not a dialogue as in "The Room" or in
"The Dumb
Waiter"?
(Davies is only a
pretext to make Aston speak and tell his story. During
Aston's monologue, Davies is in the shadow and he never speaks. Aston
soon
forgets his presence and does not really perceive him as an
interlocutor.
Actually Aston is talking to himself, to recollect his terrible
experience
which signed him forever and to try to give it a meaning. For all these
reasons,
despite Davies' presence, Aston is not uttering a dialogue like Rose
with Bert
in "The Room" but he is uttering a monologue.)
Total timing:
15 minutes
AIM: students will
compare the characteristics of two
different authors and will helped through grids at identifying
similarities and
differences
Think
about Beckett and Pinter's plays. Find similarities and differences
completing
the list with the expressions below
Themes
Pinter
: lack of true human relationship;
ambiguity and the uncertainty of the human condition; monotony of life ;
incapacity of finding a meaning in human
existence
Beckett:
lack of true
human relationship; ambiguity and the uncertainty of the human
condition;
monotony of life ; incapacity of finding a meaning in human existence
difficulty or the
incapacity of real
communication
lack of true human
relationship
ambiguity and the
uncertainty of the human
condition
monotony of life
incapacity of finding
a meaning in human
existence
Language
Pinter: realistic;
reproduce the rhythm of everyday speech; preserves the syntactic
structure of
the sentence
Beckett: fragmentary;
Incoherent; destroys the syntactic
structure of the sentence
destroys the syntactic
structure of the sentence
Realistic
Fragmentary
reproduce the rhythm
of everyday speech
preserves the
syntactic structure of the
sentence
Incoherent
Timing: 5
minutes
AIM: the aim of this activity is drawing
final
conclusions on the whole work
The teacher
and the students create
on the blackboard two maps in order to summarize the important features:
