‘Men Should Weep’ Ena Lamont Stewart

1. ‘Men Should Weep’Ena Lamont Stewart Act One Scene 1 Introductionto the play

2. The play portrays the grim reality of life in the Glaswegian tenements in the 1930s. The action of the play takes place over the few weeks leading up to Christmas in a tenement flat. We follow the fortunes and misfortunes of the Morrison family, including struggling with unemployment, relationship issues and illness. The various plot strands build up to a climax as Maggie comes under increasing pressure to hold the family together. It was Lamont Stewart’s aim to portray ‘Real life. Real people.’ As we read the play, think about how successful you think she is in achieving her aim of realism.

3. Structure The play has three acts: • Act 1 sets the scene and establishes the major themes of the play. • Act 2 develops these as tensions and problems with in the family worsen. • Act 3 sees the climax as Maggie finally ‘snaps’ and asserts herself, and the resolution as the Morrisons face a future which is hopeful in a muted way. There’s certainly not a ‘happy-ever-after’ ending.

4. Setting • The whole play takes place in the main room of the Morrisons’ tenement flat in the East End of Glasgow in the 1930s. • From your work on the social context of ‘Men Should Weep’, you should have a sound understanding of life in the Glasgow tenements in the 1930s. • The flat consists of a combined living room, kitchen and bedroom (for Maggie and John), leading off to the other bedroom, the ‘back parlour’ and a bed recess.

5. Stage

6. This limited space is home to, as well as Maggie and John, their children Jenny, Edie, Ernest, Bertie, Marina and Christopher, as well as Granny and, later, their oldest child, Alec and his wife, Isa. That’s 11 people living in 3 rooms, including an elderly person, a baby and a seriously ill child. It’s easy to see why tempers flare and tension rises: no privacy, no comfort, not even a bed of their own (apart from Granny, who takes her bed with her as she moves between Maggie and Lizzie.

7. The claustrophobic nature of the setting is integral to the development of plot, theme and character. The play would not work in a more spacious, luxurious setting. The narrow limits of the flat symbolise the limited options and opportunities of the characters.

8. Introduction to the characters Maggie Morrison • Downtrodden, oppressed, poor, overburdened, working class at the opening but emancipated by the end. • She works within and out with the home. • At the start of the play she is very supportive of her husband. She gives him his place and makes sure others do the same. • She makes a personal journey and becomes a stronger woman through the play.

9. Introduction to the characters John Morrison – Maggie’s husband • John is out of work, idle and a chauvinist, but he is portrayed with a clever sympathy throughout. • The play contains criticisms of male power, female oppression, misplaced pride and vanity and works towards his humiliation at the end of the play. • There is a change in his role as the head of the house as the play progresses.

10. Introduction to the characters Jenny Morrison – Maggie and John’s daughter • She acts as an agent of John’s guilt by revealing the wide disparity between the family’s ambitions and their social and economic reality. • She is a young woman who wants to experience life, who wants a better life. • She is both the apple of her father’s eye and the recipient of his aggression.

11. Introduction to the characters Jenny Morrison – Maggie and John’s daughter • She becomes disenchanted with the restrictions poverty imposes, so she leaves home. • Jenny’s second role in the drama is to provide a neat and resolved ending to the plot.

12. Introduction to the characters Lily Gibb – Maggie’s sister • Single. Working. Independent and highly dismissive of men, not stereotypical for her time • She is often seen as criticising John and his role within the family. However, Maggie sticks up for him and defends him.

13. Introduction to the characters Lily Gibb – Maggie’s sister • Lily has an unusual role for a woman of her day, as a spinster. Maggie feels sorry for her, having no man in her life and no children. Lily on the other hand can’t see how the want to be a ‘slave’ to a husband and family is a life of satisfaction. • Her relationship with Maggie is an integral part of the play and her presence in the final scene underlines her role within her sister’s family. They see each other’s faults but both want what’s best for the family.

14. Introduction to the characters Alec and Isa Morrison – John and Maggie’s son and his wife • These two characters act as a sub-plot to the play. • Isa is portrayed as a conniving woman. She is cunning, manipulative and displays nothing but contempt for Alec. • Alec is shown to be weak and violent.

15. Introduction to the characters Alec and Isa Morrison – John and Maggie’s son and his wife • Isa knows that by reinforcing John’s masculinity she undermines his relationship with Maggie. She flirts with him and teases him. • Alec is the eldest son and Maggie’s favourite. Maggie defends him against Isa (she does not like her). • He is madly in love with his wife and cannot see her faults. • He is lazy and appears to be on the criminal fringes.

16. Introduction to the characters Granny Morrison – John’s mother • A caricature - but makes the point that as an elderly woman she has absolutely no independence whatsoever and is reliant upon others for everything - even being put to bed. • Some humour surrounds her – ‘eatin' and ‘greetin' but her role does not forward the plot significantly.

17. Introduction to the characters The Neighbours - Mrs Wilson, Mrs Harris and Mrs Bone • Gossips and part of the community, and therefore insiders to the drama, but also symbolic of the wider society and therefore can comment on the action as outsiders. • They can also help to amplify certain themes such as the social and economic control men have over women

18. Introduction to the characters The Neighbours - Mrs Wilson, Mrs Harris and Mrs Bone • Other themes and issues they help highlight are the female social experience, domestic relationships and Maggie's situation and circumstances. • Issues (physical violence and domestic abuse, economic dependence and socialisation) are raised but never fully developed through these characters or their interactions with others. Some humour comes through these characters too.

19. We are going to read the first scene.

20. Act 1, Scene 1 – Summary • The play is set in the 1930s and it's a winter evening in the kitchen of the Morrisons’ home in the east end of Glasgow. • The play opens on a disordered tenement household where six of the seven children (Jenny, Edie, Ernest, Bertie, Marina and Christopher), two parents (John and Maggie) and Granny of the Morrison family live. • The chaos of family life, held together by Maggie, is clearly depicted but the overall tone is lighthearted and the audience can see that the family is quite a happy one. • Maggie tries to put Granny to bed.

21. Act 1, Scene 1 – Summary • Maggie’s sister Lily comes in; she helps with the children and talks to Maggie about Maggie’s ever-demanding situation. • Topics covered include the role of women, the role of men and Bertie’s worrying ill-health. • When John comes in, the sparring between John and Lily ends with her storming out of the house. • The tone of the scene begins to darken when neighbours bring news of the Morrisons’ troublesome son Alec and his wife Isa, whose home has collapsed.

22. Activity 1 – The introduction of themes The three key themes of poverty, gender roles and heroism are intertwined in the play. The challenges Maggie faces are due, to a large extent, to her poverty and gender. Read p1 to the top of p4 (‘…a brisk knock on the outside door’). In groups: Discuss the ways in which the opening is significant in terms of: • Setting • Stage directions • Plot • Character development • Thematic development

23. Answers: Setting Overcrowded, with no privacy and little comfort. This is established immediately with the description of the kitchen, with the bed recess, nappies drying over the fire, clutter and the presence of three generations living so closely together.

24. Answers: Stage Directions We first see Maggie hanging out of the window, shouting at the children outside, while also dealing with Granny’s needs and then those of the children, behind the curtain. These attempts to assert some sort of control over the people she is responsible for are the pattern for Maggie’s struggle throughout the play. The plight of Granny, infirm and homeless (if it were not for the care of the family who struggle to look after her), is shown in her sitting ‘whining and rocking’, ‘setting up a terrible wail’, while her sudden and random singing emphasises her confusion.

25. Answers: Stage Directions Edie, though only eleven, is already taking on many family responsibilities. She is dressed in cast-off clothes, messy and skinny. We can see their impoverished diet: sugar and carbohydrate –based, even for the baby. Maggie herself moves between various family needs, except when she ‘sinks into a chair and sighs, then yawns widely’: her exhaustion is clear.

26. Answers: Plot Maggie is trying simultaneously to get Granny to bed and her younger children in, fed and ready for bed. We learn that Granny has no home of her own but goes between Maggie and Lizzie, both daughters-in-law, and the Lizzie is reluctant to take her. Maggie clearly is struggling to deal with the various family needs and is in a muddle. She has not time for herself. A ‘brisk knock’ announces the arrival of Lily.

27. Answers: Character Development Maggie’s weary struggles are at the centre of this opening (as, indeed, of the whole play). Her impotent shouting at the children, her conversation with Granny (in which there is limited ‘real’ communication) and her threats to Edie and Marina suggest an irritable person, but it is the difficulties in her life that make her so. We sense she is ‘never finished’ and never quite accomplishes anything. She is exasperated and impatient with Granny and her humour can be cutting: ‘Och, it’s [Granny’s life] been ebbin ever since I met ye; but the tide aye seems to come in again.’

28. Answers: Character Development Nonetheless, she shows kindness, agreeing to being Granny tea, with condensed milk, sugar and bread (although this is also a bribe to get her off to bed), and saying, ‘John and me wad never send ye onywhere.’ Granny is pathetic, needy and manipulative. This suggests that the future for women such as her, when their children have grown up, is bleak and insecure.

29. Answers: Thematic Development All of the above emphasises the difficulties of a life of poverty. We can see that the various characters are actually hungry in a way most of us today do not experience. In the domestic setting this poverty impacts particularly on women, whose life is portrayed as an endless struggle. (Only female characters have appeared so far.) As Maggie says, ‘If a woman did everything that ought tae be done aboot the hoose, she’d go on a day an a night till she drapped doon deid.’

30. Activity 2: First impressions of Maggie and Lily The focus for this activity is the opening section of the play, until John’s arrival home (pp.1-13). • In pairs, consider your first impressions of Maggie and Lily in this opening section of the play. • Come up with three to five adjectives to describe each woman and write each of these on a sticky note. • You will be asked to justify and elaborate on your choice of word(s).

31. Agree on three adjectives for each character before deciding who will work on each character. • One should work on Maggie, the other on Lily. • Find evidence for each adjective and reinforce this with a supporting quotation from the opening section of the play. • These will be shared on Edmodo.

32. Activity 3: Contrasting Maggie and Lily Maggie’s and Lily’s lives, attitudes and personalities contrast sharply. Find quotations that illustrate this contrast and write them in the table on the sheet you have been given.

33. Answers Activity 3: Contrasting Maggie and Lily ‘Goad, if it’s nae yin, it’s anither’ ‘Maggie, ye’re aye in the same pickle’ ‘Old maids are awfu good at the criticizin’ ‘(Surveys Maggie’s muddle, sighs… wonders where to start)’

34. Answers Activity 3: Contrasting Maggie and Lily ‘I dinna ken whit they dirty rotten buggers in Parliament are doing wi ma money… John says’ ‘I’m no wantin to hear whit John says aboot they bliddy capitalists’ ‘He’s a man and I’m a wumman. We’re flesh and blood’ ‘John should think shame o himsel’

35. Answers Activity 5: Contrasting Maggie and Lily ‘Awa fir Goad’s sake! It’s no Setterday nicht’ ‘D’ye no tak aff her dress tae wash her neck?’ ‘I canna help ma looks ony mair than you can help yours’ ‘Have ye looked in the mirror since ye rose the morn?’ ‘You leave John alane! He does his best for us’ ‘That’s whit he tells you, onyway’

36. Activity 4: The impact of John’s arrival home • John’s arrival home and his ensuing conversation with Lily and Maggie develops our understanding of one of the central concerns of the play: attitudes towards women and expected gender roles. • You are going to discuss and take notes on the following : What is revealed about attitudes to women and expected gender roles in Act 1, Scene 1? (p13-18) You are going to work in groups of 5. Each group member will have responsibility for taking detailed notes on the group’s responses to one question.

37. Discussion questions: • What is John’s attitude towards women and how they manage the house? • How do Maggie and Lily react to his comments? • After she storms off, John comments about Lily, ‘Nae wunner she couldna get a man’. What do you think he means by this, and what is revealed about how he believes women should behave? • What is revealed about women’s attitudes towards men in these comments from early in the scene: • ‘Jist like him! Leave a the dirty work tae the women!’(Lily) • ‘They canna staun up tae things like a wumman. They loss the heid and shout.’(Maggie) • ‘If ye’ve got weans, ye’ve got tae pit up wi the fella that gied ye them.’(Maggie) • Consider attitudes towards women and expected gender roles in our society. In what ways have our attitudes changed? In what ways have they stayed the same?

38. Look again at question 5: Consider attitudes towards women and expected gender roles in our society. In what ways have our attitudes changed? In what ways have they stayed the same? Read the following article: ♯PatronisingBTlady Now discuss question 5 again

39. Activity 4: The impact of John’s arrival home 1) Now you are going to form ‘expert groups’ - i.e. all those with responsibility for Q1 join together - and share your group’s ideas etc. 2) These expert groups are now going to prepare presentations of their responses / ideas and deliver them to the rest of the class. 3) Summary - what has the audience learned about attitudes towards women and expected gender roles at this stage of the play? 4) Write up what you have learned.

40. Activity 5: Maggie, Lily and John In pairs: Look for positives and negatives in the presentation of John. Try to find three of each. Look particularly at his relationship with Maggie, his attitude to gender roles, and his behaviour towards Lily. Possible Answers: Dismissive of women: ‘nae system’ Affectionate to Maggie Welcoming (slightly sarcastic) Will not go to hospital with Maggie Sense of humour Not very appreciative of Lily’s help Helps Maggie - sometimes Antagonises Lily Loses temper Would like to provide Maggie with more Warm memories of the past Unfairly critical of Maggie

41. Activity 6: The neighbours In pairs: how do the neighbours act as a positive and/or negative force in the lives of women like Maggie? Positive: The neighbours provide support, chat, conviviality and understanding towards each other. This would be an important feature in a hard and difficult life. With such polarised gender roles, these women’s lives would have little in common with their own husbands – and far more of a link with other women. Negative: However, they also squabble among themselves: for example, Maggie passes on the teacher’s comment about ‘beasts’to Mrs Harris, while Mrs Harris accuses Maggie of not cleaning the stairs.

42. Activity 7: Alec and Jenny There are important references in this opening scene to Alec and Jenny, the Morrisons’ older children.   • What is revealed about Alec? • What is revealed about Jenny?

43. Activity 8: Act One, Scene 1 - Quiz • Where is the play set? • Draw a ground plan for the opening scene of the play. • How many people live in the Morrisons’ tenement flat? • How old is Maggie? • How old is Alec? • What is the relationship between Lizzie and Maggie? • Who was Lloyd George and why is Granny grateful to him? • What illness does Bertie suffer from? • Why does Lily say ‘John should think shame o himsel’? • Who does Lily suggest has rickets?

44. Activity 8: Act One, Scene 1 - Quiz • How often do the Morrison children have a bath? • What does going TT mean? • What is a ‘midden’? • What evidence does Lily have for suggesting that Maggie lives in a midden? • Why does Maggie feel sorry for Lily? • Why does Lily think that Jenny is a tart? • Who is Nessie Tait? • Who does Granny share a bed with? • How does Lily help the Morrison family? • What was ‘the Buroo’?

45. Activity 8: Act One, Scene 1 - Quiz • What do the Morrisons have in the way of food? • Who has a wireless? • What does Maggie suggest that women should do if they suffer from physical abuse from their husbands? •  How does Maggie discipline her children? • Why does Lily disapprove of her nephew, Alec? • Why was a ‘swagger coat’desirable? • Who was put on probation? • Who are Maggie’s neighbours? • Who owes Lily money? • Does John like Lily? (How do you know?)

46. Activity 8: Act One, Scene 1 - Quiz • What was casual labour? • What happened to some of the tenements in Alec’s street? • Who says ‘Ye mean the Polis a kens Alec’? • How does Ena Lamont Stewart portray the female neighbours? • What kind of neighbourhood do the Morrisons live in? • Who has nits? • Who were the ‘Sanitary’? • What was the ‘dunny’? • Who is the youngest character that appears in Act 1, Scene 1?

47. Activity 9: Establishing the Morrison family’s situation How the does the playwright establish what day-to-day life is like in the Morrison household? How has povertyand the environment shaped the characters’behaviourandattitudes? Make detailed notes, including quotations. Consider: • Stage directions and comments made by Lily that refer directly to the family’s poverty; • Lily’s observations about the state of the house; • Maggie’s interactions with her children. Mini-essay: Write up your notes in the form of an essay – 400 words minimum. Remember to use the PEAR (Point – Evidence – Analysis – Refer back to question) format in your essay.