Gwen

How do gwens characteristics influance her relationship with the other characteritics in thr play “Away” Gwen is the one who supervises every detail of the preparation of the family trip. Her pride in the new carvan that will be thier nw=ew mobile home during the holiday can be seen in retrospect as an act of hubris, self satisfaction, that is destined to fall apart. Her smug boast, we re got new caravan. Everything in it you could want’ suggests a child braggiung about new toy in front of freind and adds a note of poignacy to the devastating event halfway through her journey in which the carvan is destroyed by a storm. Gwen is the most intense character in the play. She holds the most extreme views and undergoes the most radical inner change through what she experiences on her on her journey. She is introduced in 1 one, scene 2 one with the accusatory eruption, ‘You w ere supposed to hurry, not stand round yapping’ (p.7) but is completely silent in the last four scenes. Her final words have changed utterly in tone from her earlier dialogue: “come on, down to thewater. The water is so warm” From the moment gwen enters the play we have to wonder what her problem is. She carps, complains and whines about everything, criticises and finds fault with everyone, and could be more described as a misanthrope-someone who detests other people in general. The only person who challanges her right to behave so malevolently is her daughter me as gwen insists on calling her. After gwen has spoken disparagingly about Tom and his family and Tom has cursed in her response (“i Hope all the fish u catch are poisoned”), P.11, MEG TELLS HER MOTHER ‘You were awful” in the face of Gwens poisonous behaviour, this seems a rather mild complaint Gwens snobbery and her antagonism to difference is expressed in her angry outburst against “That kind of life”, also stem from the experience of the two early journeys. She disparages the fact that toms parents both work in a factory and are holidaying in a “lean-to” tent because she must distinguish herself from the kinds of privation she herself has experienced in her earlier life. She blatantly states her anti-migrant sentiment when she explodes: ‘No-one asked them to come to this country. They have no right to behave any differently’. She expresses have a profound conservatism which emanates from the fear that her own material and emotional security may be threatened. Gwens terror of losing Meg lies at the base of their conflict. This is crystallised symbolically in the storm. Their family is the only one in the play to experience this storm. Gwens greatest fear is of chaos and what she sees as her greatest protection against it is material goods. The chaos of the storm destroys her security and she finds herself up against the power of nature, something she cant control. Her loss of control has its final outburst in her tirade against artists: PAGE 44 The actual moment of Gwens change happens offstage (Act 4, Scene 1) and the woman who returns with Vic is quite a different person from the one who left a short time earlier. The new Gwen has expressed emotion through crying rather than shouting angrily. She is able to support Vic, the new Australian who has taken the risky journey of the migrant and who refuses to see herself as an exile from an old home but rather as a settler in a new one. Equally she is able to accept the support of Vic. In contrast to her earlier ability to have an opinion, and a negative one at that, she is quite unable to say what she thinks or feels.