Describe the relationship both daughters Share
with their father in the play
"The bear Departed " in 1000 words
Answers
' The Dear Departed ' is written by Stanley Houghton. This story depicts the sad reality of the modern nuclear families that are strained with selfish interests and individual desires.
The departed here is Mr Abel Merryweather. His daughters are Mrs Amelia Slater and Mrs Elizabeth Jordan.
The daughters, both, are very greedy and materialistic women. They believe in mourning through the best black dress, and not by showing their actual, true emotions towards their father. The daughters do not love their father and are only after his property and insurance money. Their attitudes towards their father changes on whether or not they would receive any benefit from his death.
Mrs Slater, soon after Abel dies, conspires with her husband, to shift grandfather's wooden bureau downstairs, to flinch it. She even takes the antique clock for herself and is not ashamed of herself while giving away the dead man's slippers to her husband.
Mrs Jordan, after coming to her sister's house, does not wish to see her father, and instead prefers having tea first. She is after the gold watch that belongs to the grandfather, saying that it was promised to her son, Jimmy.
The sisters wanted to have a whole poem published in the newspaper in honour of their father but they did not even respect Abel themselves. They called grandfather honourable when they thought that he had paid his insurance premium, but soon called him a drunk when they couldn't find the premium receipt.
The only one who actually cared for the grandfather was Mrs Slater's daughter Victoria. Even the husbands couldn't care less about the old man.
The daughters were selfish, greedy and jealous of each other, to the amount where they could not even pay their respects to their father without quarreling about how to distribute his belongings.