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What kind of character is Enid?
  • Key Stage 4
  • Year 10
  • English
I started the play thinking that really I was writing about these two young girls 'cause obviously I was young when I wrote the play and I was on the side of the girls. If there was a conflict in the play, I would be on the side of these young girls. And then as I started to write the play and explore Enid and was thinking about her, all of my sympathies started to go into her. I started to understand her more and her predicament and to really care about her and to understand that her stance as it were, like the things she says to her daughters are all about ensuring that they can live in a society that might be hostile to them. So she's preparing them for the harsh reality of life as young Black women Because when I was growing up in the UK, sometimes it was really tough. There was quite a lot of racism. You could walk around London and you could be sometimes surrounded by graffiti that expressed that hostility. So there'd be signs like KBW, which meant Keep Britain White. I remember that. Up the Caledonian Road there was this white wall with this graffiti on it. So you'd be surrounded by all this hostility. And also the sort of aggression of that would come ever closer into your space because where I was growing up, I grew up on a council housing estate. And that kind of graffiti would be outside your door. You could wake up one morning and find it outside yours. So somehow you had to live with that. Somehow you had to find the strength as a very young person to assert yourself and just kind of carry on while this, I think, you know, that this quite heavy thing or racism or discrimination was being enforced on you. So that's what Enid is dealing with, that knowledge. Her daughters don't really understand yet that this is the world they're going into or they believe they're strong enough to withstand it, so she has a fear that they may succumb to it and that they need every resource possible to be able to survive. And for her, one of those resources is education, is just to, you know, do well. So her goal in a way is to protect her daughters, and that's why she goes to visit May. She's seeking as much help as she can for them.
What kind of character is Enid?
  • Key Stage 4
  • Year 10
  • English
I started the play thinking that really I was writing about these two young girls 'cause obviously I was young when I wrote the play and I was on the side of the girls. If there was a conflict in the play, I would be on the side of these young girls. And then as I started to write the play and explore Enid and was thinking about her, all of my sympathies started to go into her. I started to understand her more and her predicament and to really care about her and to understand that her stance as it were, like the things she says to her daughters are all about ensuring that they can live in a society that might be hostile to them. So she's preparing them for the harsh reality of life as young Black women Because when I was growing up in the UK, sometimes it was really tough. There was quite a lot of racism. You could walk around London and you could be sometimes surrounded by graffiti that expressed that hostility. So there'd be signs like KBW, which meant Keep Britain White. I remember that. Up the Caledonian Road there was this white wall with this graffiti on it. So you'd be surrounded by all this hostility. And also the sort of aggression of that would come ever closer into your space because where I was growing up, I grew up on a council housing estate. And that kind of graffiti would be outside your door. You could wake up one morning and find it outside yours. So somehow you had to live with that. Somehow you had to find the strength as a very young person to assert yourself and just kind of carry on while this, I think, you know, that this quite heavy thing or racism or discrimination was being enforced on you. So that's what Enid is dealing with, that knowledge. Her daughters don't really understand yet that this is the world they're going into or they believe they're strong enough to withstand it, so she has a fear that they may succumb to it and that they need every resource possible to be able to survive. And for her, one of those resources is education, is just to, you know, do well. So her goal in a way is to protect her daughters, and that's why she goes to visit May. She's seeking as much help as she can for them.