Play "away" by Michael Gow

                                     Away

The author Michael Gow represents in his play “Away” three different groups of families: the couple coral and Roy and their dead solder son, the family Jim, Gwen and Meg and the migrant family Harry, Vic and Tom. Each one of these families is shown in the privacy of their home to reveal the true relationship between each other. Their relationships are influenced by their experiences and their past life (their history) and their characters.

Starting with the couple Roy and his wife Coral, that has a troubled relationship. This couple belongs to upper economic class; Roy is a school principle that lost his son in the Vietnam War.  The loss of his son affected him emotionally but he picked himself up and managed to hide his sorrow. He is a realistic person unlike his wife coral that is living in a fake world where her son is still alive. She is a grieving mother that her son’s death consumed her completely and made her withdrawn. She is a psychotic episode that doesn’t interact with people. Her attitudes makes  Roy insecure as he doesn’t want to lose his position at school because of his wife’s mental issues. Roy and Coral love each other but they don’t understand each one’s feelings. Coral blames her husband for her son’s death. Her subconscious makes her thing that Roy could’ve done something to stop her son from getting picked to go to and fight in the war. They are not honest, as coral says she’s going to change but she doesn’t;  she uses future tense which implies her promises that may not be necessarily kept.  Roy keeps pushing coral to get over her son’s death by threatening her that he would lock her up in a mental institution. By analyzing their relationship with each other , we can tell that they are not a united couple.

Another troubled family is the one of Jim, Gwen and Meg. This family belongs to a middle economic class. The mother Gwen has a complicated relationship with her daughter. She is not honest with Meg as she hides her past life when she belonged to a poor class and had to fight to get out of her hollow world. She always tries to better herself financially but  she doesn’t better herself emotionally. She over protects Meg as she doesn’t want her daughter to face the difficulties that she once had to face in her life. She tries to get meg away from Tom and she doesn’t want her to interact with him because of his low socio-economic class. Even though she loves her daughter and her intentions are good, she over exaggerate with her reactions and tries to control her family by making them feel guilty. She is a demeaning person that puts people down because of their low economic position. Meg does not understand her mother’s attitude and reactions and they are not honest with each other. Meg has a good relationship with her father but she doesn’t understand why he adopts to take blame for everything for the sake of peace. Jim is a sandwich between the two women in his life and he tries to stop the conflicts between them because he knows all the difficulties that his wife faced trying to get out of her poor life and better herself. Meg’s family tries to be united but the mother holds them from being united by her constant hysterical attitude,  her exaggerating and dominating her family by controlling their way of living.