CHARACTER SKETCH OF MRS. MELDON
Introduction:
St John G. Ervine presents the sensational drama “PROGRESS” in which the story rotates around the characters of Mrs. Meldon and Prof. Henry Corrie.
Mrs. Meldon is also called Charlotte. Her heart brims with the love of mankind and is against wars and war mongers. She symbolizes love and affection, peace and tranquility, modesty and humanity.
“To love others and love
For others is real life.”
Appearance:
Mrs. Meldon is a middle aged widow about forty three. She is dressed in black partly because she is a widow, but chiefly because of her son’s death. She is a grief stricken lady, But when in the course of the play, she speaks of her loss, she does so with grace and beautiful dignity.
A Sensitive Woman:
Mrs. Meldon is a highly sensitive lady. She feels herself “cruelly alone in this world”. The First World War has hit her heart when her only son Eddie, “a young boy, new from school”, just when his life was beginning to open out, “was mercilessly killed in action”. Her husband also died of a broken heart. She is justified in expressing her profound feelings of lamentations and agony. She is dejected at the death anniversary of her son. Her pangs of sorrow are more intensified on coming to know about the pitiless manner in which Eddie was reduced to ashes.
“There was nothing to bury. The shell
came and there was nothing.”
Peace Loving Lady:
Mrs. Meldon, by nature is a peace loving lady. She believes in “live and let others live”. After this great tragedy she turns against wars and develops a hatred for wars and war mongers. Her brother Corrie is no exception to her hartred , and says:
“You don’t realize how deeply women
like me feel about this….this organized
butchery of boys. Look at me! I had a
husband and a son when the war began.
I had neither it was over.”
She is against her brother’s invention of devastating bomb which will annihilate life. She tries her best to stop him from going on with his selfish and ambitious plan of achieving wealth and fame by inventing the deadly bomb. She says:
“Someone life me not clever
creates a beautiful thing like my
son, and you, with all your
cleverness, can only destroy it”
A Loving Wife And An
Affectionate Mother:
Mrs. Meldon is a loving wife and an affectionate mother. She brings her son in an excellent manner. She wanted to make him great. Therefore, she takes cares to educate him, to make him strong and healthy and to create in him the quality of moral values and self respect. She shares the innocent pleasures of her son. A mother she proves to be simply wonderful. Believing in values she says:
“with nothing in my life but my love
for my husband and my son.”
Difference in Opinion:
Mrs. Meldon is filled with the milk of human kindness. She has an affectionate nature. But her brother Corrie is quite cruel and cunning fellow. As she herself has suffered from the brutalities of war, she can well understand the grief of others. Contradicting her brother’s views she says:
“I can’t get any pleasure out of
the thought that some poor
German woman is suffering
Just as I’m suffering.”
When Corrie seeks her advice asto how much he should demand for his invention, she taunts him:
“Wht not say thirty pieces of Silver?”
When Prof. Corrie ask her to take “a broad statesman like view” about war, she again taunts him:
“If Eddie had been a statesman. he
would not have gone to the war.
He would have sent someone else.”
Conclusion:
Meldon wants Henry to realize her point of view and request him time again, to destroy the formula of the horrible bomb for the sake of humanity and world peace.
“Your bomb will destroy
life, Henry.”
For this noble purpose she cannot see an eye to eye with her brother. She fails to bring him round and seeing no way out, and on the spur of the moment, she take the sentimental decision of stabbing her only brother to death……… only to save mankind from destruction.
In fact Mrs. Meldon was a peace loving lady, loving mother, devoted wife, and a great lover of humanity.
“War seems to me a mean and
contemptible thing” |
