SAVED

AUTHOR: Edward Bond

TITLE: Saved

EDITORIAL: University Photocopies

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

- Pam. She is 23 years old, but she seems to be younger. She is thin, and dark-haired. At first she is with Len, and then she loves Fred, the father of her baby, and who kills him.

- Fred. She is the father of the baby that Pam has. He kills him and he goes to prison for it.

- Len. He seems older than Pam in mind. He is tall and thin. When he is living in Pam’s house he intents to help in the house.

- Mary. She is Pam’s mother. She is 53 years old. She doesn’t talk with her husband for several years.

- Harry. He is Pam’s father.

The rest of characters are friends of Pam. They are adolescents and they are rebellious and selfish.

PLOT AND SUMMARY

Len is a young boy that loves Pam. He goes to live in Pam’s house. But later, Pam is with Fred, and she has a baby of him. The only person who looks after the baby is Len. One day Pam leaves the baby with Fred, and he and his friends play with the baby until they kill him. Then Fred goes to prison for it. When Fred comes out of prison, he runs away far of Pam. The girl thinks that Len is the culprit in the separation of Fred. Moreover, Harry (Pam’s father) thinks that Len influences Mary (Pam’s mother). At the end, Pam wants that Len leaves her house, but he doesn’t do it.

SPACE AND TIME

The play takes place in the south of London, in a lot of places: in a room in Pam’s house, in a room in Len’s house, in the park, in the prison and in a coffee. The time isn’t specificity in the play but I think that it could be a year or a little more.

LITERARY RESOURCES

I must emphasize that this play is difficult to understand because the author uses the slang of the adolescents in London in the play. This range of the language has difficulties to be understood well, and this is the reason because I don’t understand very well the play. But this slang represents the society, or a part of the society that characters perform (poor adolescents). The topic of the murder of the baby is polemic, too; and this topic isn’t pleasant.

PERSONAL OPINION

This play is very difficult to understand. In my opinion, the language used (slang of poor adolescents in London) makes the play difficult to understand. I don’t understand the play well for this reason, and from my point of view, it is a problem because the topic that appears in the play (adolescents’ problems) is interesting for me (less the batter of the baby), but I can’t understand well the play.