A Day In The Death of Joe Egg – Prompted Essay
How does Peter Nichols play “A day in the death of Joe Egg” involve its audience in the problems of looking after a handicapped child? A day in the death of Joe Egg is a powerful dramatic novel written upon a husband and wife looking after a special needs child.
Throughout the play Peter Nichols the writer uses meaningful devices that emphasises their situation and gives the reader a powerful insight to what its like being in they’re in their shoes. Although the play was written in 1967 it still closely resembles some of the harsh issues that parents face today. Many methods are use to by Peter Nichols to give the play a body; he uses features such as fraudin slip, metaphors, similes but by far the most striking method Peter uses is the suspension of disbelief. This striking method is used to hold the reader in suspense until a certain point believing something that is not actually the truth. The play is very open minded to the reader, at some points in the play it is very hard for the reader to actually understand what is going on. Powerful slow motion images of Joe skipping and being fed are used as if she is a perfectly normal child is used to confuse the reader. Peter Nichols also uses a clever device called a Freudian slip. A Freudian slip is when the author purposely makes a certain character accidentally make a mistake in speech forcing out a word or sentence that should not have been said. It is used to give the reader or some one else in the play a hint on a certain subject that maybe another character should not know. A good example would be to tell a lie to someone then accidentally say something that would make it easy to understand that you were telling a lie. This is a play that I would highly recommend to anyone of all ages, some people may find this dramatic story disturbing and may become upset to see what Joe has to go through or how she is received from other people. Brian is Joe’s father who plays the part of what some people would say an ignorant grumpy aging man. The play begins with Brian teaching his class at school. Instantly it is easy to pick out Brian’s character. He gives the impression that he is a very strict man that is hard to take serious at times. Brian even calls on of his pupils a ‘flasher’. Sheila is Brian’s wife that respects the fact of the way Joe is but Brian likes to make little jokes out of it that some people may find funny and others may find harsh. I think this is a great idea because this is a play to attract all kinds of readers and here is a good example of Shelia respecting the fact and Brian making a joke about it.
Problems that Bri and Sheila face are a big part of this play. It seems as if Bri becomes so stressed at one point that he tries to murder Joe because of stressful situations in looking after her. The couple come up against problems such as,
Bri making jokes about everything
Bri feeling as if he cannot compete with Sheila’s previous boyfriends
Not able to have too much quality time together
And finally a controversial that maybe Bri is jealous of all the attention that Joe gets. Over all this is a play that will attract anyone of any age, its interesting, disturbing, and partly funny but most of all the play resembles some of the harsh real life situations. This is guaranteed to keep any reader continuing their journey into a day in the death of Joe Egg.