Task: In “The Long and The Short and The Tall”

Task: In The yen and The Short and The T both Willis H completely uses badinage and stereotyping to confound our expectations and make us change our opinion. Show how the dramatist has used these techniques in the play to put across his message.

The Long and The Short and The tall written by Willis Hall is close a group of conscripts from Britain during the number World War. They argon in the Malayan jungle on the look divulge for flavoranese employment because they are expecting an invasion. They stop to rest in a hutch on a rubber plantation. While they are there a pinchanese spend stumbles upon the hut. He enters and they capture him. Johnstone, the polices Corporal, grabs the Japanese pass and then tells the men to putting to death him. e actually the men traverse except Bamforth who is the only soldier leaveing to despatch the Japanese soldier. Mitchem, the patrols police sergeant comes back from outside and tells Bamforth to stop because he has the idea that they croupe take him back to base and interrogate him for information. Then Whitaker hears the Japanese operator on the radio and they realise they are adjoin and that getting back will be dangerous. Mitchem then experiences the captive as too much of a indebtedness and essentials to tear him. all in all the men then want to murder the captive to save themselves. By this time Bamforth has realised that the Japanese soldier is not sub-human, scarce is actually just similar him. The captive is scared and needs a cigarette just interchangeable the British soldiers. One of the men, Whitaker panics and fine-tunes the Japanese captive with his gun. The gunshots alert the Japanese soldiers who make an advance on the hut and sweep away all the British soldiers except one, Johnstone who surrenders to the Japanese.

The title The Long and The Short and The Tall comes from the chorus of a song that was very popular during the Second World War, which praised the usual soldiers in the Army. The author, Willis Hall, makes the characters bosss by giving them key features. metalworker is a stamp because he has the most common name in England and is a old man from the Midlands. He is working class and lives in a council house, as he phrases: Bit of a one. Council. Up on the new estate. That was when Evans was asking where he lived to set out more more or slight him. Smith also does a bit of gardening. : a couple of(prenominal) veg round the back- cabbages and that, Brussels, couple of rows of peas, one or devil blooms. not a lot. You know the usual. He was also telling Evans active his hobbies, which include fishing, and gardening, which is stereotypical of a family man, with a wife and two children. When the captive is captured I expect Smith to turn over scruple about killing. He reacts to kill the prisoner.

The character Evans is a stereotype because he has the most common Welsh name. He is puppyish and is still being cared for by his mother who sends him womens magazines to examine: My mother sends it to me every week. Im following the ensuant He is working-class and also naïve. Bamforth particularly impresses him because he thinks he is smart and sophisticated. Evans is quiet and alleviate and is no controvert for Bamforth. Bamforth tells him that in a fight he would use filthy tactics to win and Evans is quite shocked at that and replies: You wouldnt fight bid that, Bammo When the prisoner is captured I expected Evans to refuse to kill the prisoner. He lives up to these expectations by formula: II brush asidet do it, Corp. Macleish is a stereotype of a Scotsman because his name includes Mac which is very common in Scotland. He is also young and working class. He has lately been promoted which made him pompous as we see from his dialogue: Ill not stand for any of your insubordinations. He uses big linguistic process to make him feel more sophisticated than the other men. He is shown as violent and is ready to fight Bamforth: As farthest as Im concerned, Ill jack the attach tomorrow to drop you one on. And thats a anticipate Bamforth. Macleish is a stereotypical Scot as he is tough and aggressive. only when he has a brother who big businessman have been captured and might be a prisoner of struggle. When the Japanese soldier is captured he reacted the way I expected and wouldnt kill him. For all his aggression to fightds Bamforth, he is still a decent man. All the men are decent and they all refused to kill the prisoner and I wasnt surprised.

Whitaker is the opposite kind of person from Bamforth. Whitaker is gentle and Bamforth is cocky and aggressive especially when talking to Macleish, Bamforth says: Go block off your tape. Whitaker wants to be seen back home as a war hero, so is exceptton to pretend he fought and got the souvenirs. He has collected lots of Japanese equipment. He buys this from the British soldiers: Some Jap buttons and a couple of roundsa nippo cap badge and a belt. Whereas Bamforth didnt want to be a hero. He says he would run: What! If the yellow hordes where waving bayonets at me, Id be off like a whipper. Youll not see my dock for dust. Whitaker never criticises anyone and Bamforth criticises everyone. When the prisoner is captured I expected Whitaker to refuse to kill him and I expected Bamforth to agree to kill the prisoner. Bamforth offers to do the killing: Here. Give me hold. Its only the aforementioned(prenominal) as carving up a pig. Hold him still. The expectations that Willis Hall has created in typify One are confounded when the Japanese prisoner is to be killed in the second act. This scene shows Mitchem deciding to kill the prisoner because he is too much of a liability and they wouldnt be able to get back to battalion with him as a member of the party. I thought I knew how each of the men would react to the suggestion that the prisoner should be killed. I thought Evans would refuse because he is religious and wants to go after the rules, just as he did when Bamforth is talking about battle dirty: You wouldnt fight like that, Bammo? I wasnt surprised when he refused to kill the prisoner because he is a Christian and very innocent, as we saw in piece One: I cant! I cant! Corp, I cant. Macleish will refuse to kill the prisoner because his brother is in the same position as the Japanese soldier and he feels that if he agrees to the killing, then it will be like condemning his brother. Macleish wants to believe in the rules of war: Theres such a thing as the Geneva Convention! Whitaker wont want to kill the prisoner because he is nervous just being in the same room as him, so he wouldnt have the courage to kill him. Smith wont kill the prisoner because he is just the same person as the captive, but only in a different uniform. The prisoner, like Smith, has a wife and two children. Bamforth has shown the whole patrol the ho dos pictures: Its a picture of a Nippo bintNippo snappers, Sarge.Two Jap kids I think Smith is the least likely to kill the prisoner because he is the person who is most like him.

However, I was completely wrong and my expectations of all of them were confounded, as Willis Hall shows in the last scene of the play. They all agree to the killing. Evans, like Smith agrees to the killing of the Japanese soldier because he realises that it is either him or the prisoner. Smith says: Its him or us. Macleish does not actually agree to the killing of the prisoner, he just does nothing.



The stage directions say: (Macleish continues to stare out of the windowMacleish does not move.) He is allowing it to happen but he does not want to be part of it, so he stares out of the window and ignores Bamforth. He feels that if he does not abide to it then the Japanese army will have no reason to kill his brother. I didnt expect Whitaker to want to kill the prisoner and he didnt object to the idea. All Whitaker did was make other excuses to get out of it: Weve got to get back, Bammo. He doesnt want to agree to the killing of the prisoner like Macleish, and so he makes up other excuses. He is very weak and cowardly.

All the men are willing to forfeiture the prisoner for their own survival. This confounds my expectations because I thought that they would be less likely to kill the prisoner the more they got to know him and find out that he is not sub-human. But they didnt. Mitchem says to Bamforth: The circumstances are altered. The situations changed. I cant take him along. Mitchem wants to get resign of the prisoner because they are in a situation where its either the British patrol or the Japanese soldier and they all want to kill the Japanese prisoner quite of trying to take him along.

Ironically of all the members of the patrol I expected Bamforth to be the ruthless person who would kill without a thought. In this scene Bamforth shows himself to be a Christ-like figure, restraining the prisoner against the others even at the expense of his own life. I was true that Whitaker wouldnt touch the prisoner because he was scared of him. The stage directions say, (Whitaker is still afraid to move.) Bamforth is fighting his own side to defend the prisoners life. The attitude Bamforth adopts is unexpected because at the arise of the play Bamforth is only out for himself.

Id be off like a whipper. Youll not see my tail for dust. In scene one Bamforth doesnt even guide letting the prisoner live but in Act Two, things change because Bamforth sees that the prisoner is not sub-human and tries to protect him. The stage directions say: (Positioning himself between the prisoner and Johnstone) He blocks Johnstone and I think he is saying inside himself if you want to kill the prisoner, you are going to have to come through me.

Ironically it is Whitaker who killed the prisoner. He is cautious and frightened of his own shadow. He tries to be seen as a hero in the war. He is the one who does the killing but he was in a panic and the gun went off. Ironically, he wanted to be a hero. Now he is but his actions have condemned the rest of the men in the patrol. My expectations of all the ordinary men were confounded. Mitchem says: Its a war. Its something in a uniform and its a different shade to mine. He is stereotyping the enemy to just a thing in a uniform, not a human being. To them the word enemy essence a dangerous, violent, ugly creature that is not human. Bamforth shows that the enemy is a man exactly like Smith. He has a wife and children and is scared and vulnerable. Stereotypes are dangerous and lead us to track the humanity of others. When Johnstone says: Its a bloody nip. He is saying that the soldier isnt a human by employ the word it. Bamforth sees him as a human, just like them and says: Hes a man! Willis Hall used stereotyping and chaff to give us his message. He wants us to think about war and how it brutalises men and turns them into machines with no humanity.

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