My Mother Said I Never Should: Literary Card

Literary card
My mother said I never should


Author: Charlotte Keatley.

First publication: In Great Britain in 1988 by Methuen London Ltd.

Setting in time: The time changes continually, as it shows the important moments of each character’s life, and they are from different generations. The story is not written chronologicaly. It goes to the past or skips many months or even yearsseveral times. The events takes place from the year 1923 to 1987.
As well as this, there is a paralel world created by the author. In this world, there is no time. Not only because it is not mentioned and can not be deduced by the context, but also because the ages of the characters are altered (going from five to nine, which is impossible if we take into account that they are actuallygreat-grandmother, grandmother, mother and daughter).

Setting in place: Most of the story takes place in England, in cities that exist: Manchester, Oldham and London.
But the paralel world, in which the main characters are all girls is named Wasteground, and does not exist, but was invented for this story by the author.

Themes: There are many themes in this play, strongly related to each other. The mostimportant one is the relationship betwen the women in a family, especially between mother and daughter, with a small difference of age. This relationship involves feelings of love, protection and happiness, but also other darker feelings such as jealousy and disdain.
Another important theme is how women act, think and deal with their problems, and the way in which they see the world. We see howwomen often have higher expectations of themselves than men and how they handle their imbalance with men in the society.
Apart from that, the relationship between men and each of the women that appear in the story: being with them at first but suffering arfterwards and being left by them (for different reasons). This is shown throughout the whole story, although the men characters do not appear inthe scenes, the effect that their actions cause in women is shown.

Imagery: In this story there are not many descriptions of the places and clothing but there are certain details specified. This are: a way of dressing for each of the women that take part in the story (related to their ages and generations) and also the description of the places in which the story takes place (generaly houses),wich are quite simple, with common furniture and a piano; and in the case of Doris’ house, with a big and nice garden.

Symbols: There are things in the story that represent other facts. This are:
- The solitaire game that Rosie plays and wins at the end of the story symbolises her feelings: her pain for the death of Margaret (whom she thought was her mother) and the anger and sadness she feltfor being lied about who her mother really was (Jackie). At first she does not seem to be able to recover from these. But at the time when she wins the solitaire, she feels she has got over everything that made her upset.
- The Wasteground (a paralel world created by the author in which all the women that appear in this story are girls) the ages of the characters are altered so that the behaviourof each girl shows the person that the adult has locked away. As they are children, they are seen as they really are: saying what they mean and genuinely exploring the world (something they try to avoid as adults).
- When at the Wasteground Jackie plans to kill her mother and gives her a curse, she is supposed to die. This part creates a doubt in the reader about whether Maragaret died in thereal world just because of a disease or because she was cursed at the Wasteground.

Characters: Only four characters appear on stage:
- Doris Partington: She is Margaret’s mother. Was born in Oldham, in February 1900. Was engaged in the year 1923 and married Jack Bradley in Oldham in 1924. She is aged 5 in child scenes. She is a good person, quite, old-fashined, romantic and always effetionate...