Learner Resource 2
The British class system
Despite Tony Blair’s claim that ‘we’re all middle-class now’, Britain remains one of the most polarised societies in the West, with the top 10% of the population earning 100 times more than the bottom 10%. In order to understand how the comedy operates in That Face, as well as Stenham’s desire to confront her predominantly middle-class audience, think about how important class is in contemporary British society.
By satirising the boarding school rituals so fondly adhered to by teachers and pupils alike, Stenham is asking the audience to confront an institutionalised brutality hidden away behind closed doors of the upper-classes.
Look closely at the following extract from scene three, page 36 (Faber Edition), and then answer the questions below.
Version 11© OCR 2017
That Face
1.How do you react to the way Mia explains her behaviour?
2.Why do you think Mia does not worry about the consequences?
3.What is Stenham suggesting about the way class influences her behaviour?
4.How does this attitude relate to the context of the play?
Suggested responses
Her class could explain the way Mia fails to fear being suspended from school. Although she has moments of guilt, any anxiety she might have had rapidly subsides due to the fact that ‘Daddio’ can come and ‘save the day’. Ultimately, her class and status lends her protection and her father is able to pay off the school.
This could be a reflection of the banking sector, that long had advocated deregulation and reduced government interference but then expected to be bailed out by the state or nationalised, costing the public, who simultaneously faced declining public services, millions of pounds.
Further thoughts on class
Whilst only 7% of children attend private school in the UK, a Sutton Trust report revealed that 71% of top military officials, 74% of top judges, 51% of leading print journalists and 62% of the 2010 Coalition cabinet were privately educated. In comparison, 16.8% of the population in 2012-13 were living in absolute poverty, rising to 23.2% when housing costs are included.
The result of this growing income inequality is represented by the two working characters in the play; Hugh, a stock broker living in Hong Kong and Sonia, a cleaner working for £7 an hour, cash-in-hand.
Sustained polarisation has resulted in an entrenched fear of the working classes, with Martha and Henry both stricken by the idea she may have to enter the ‘NHS loony bin’ like everyone else as opposed to a ‘comfortable’ private clinic. Their paranoia and snobbery that their ‘cleaner lady’ might come round to collect the money she has rightfully earned, along with the assumption she will steal Martha’s jewels, shows a symbolic fear that the working class ‘Other’ is physically encroaching on their space.
Look closely at this extract from scene two, pages23-24, and answer the questions below.
5.What does the writer suggest about the way Martha and Henry feel about their cleaner Sonia?
6.What could the fact that Sonia never appears on stage represent?
Suggested responses
The lack of empathy towards someone who is merely trying to scrape a living haunts the play, and Sonia’s presence as a working-class character, despite never making an appearance onstage, sharply contrasts with Martha’s complaints that there is ‘no room’ and ‘no money’.
The fact that Sonia remains offstage could be symbolic of the conscious effort to depoliticise and erase working-class voices, as Trade Union power decreased by Thatcher and later Blair. This diminishing power could be represented by Martha’s poor treatment of Sonia.
Look at this extract from scene six, page 59, and answer the questions below.
7.What do you feel about Martha’s behaviour here?
8.How far do you excuse her behaviour because she is drunk?
Suggested responses
Having already either fired Sonia or reduced her working hours at short notice, Martha shows no difficulty in hurling abuse at the person she thinks is her cleaner. Whilst her drinking may be partly to blame, this reveals a deeply intrenched belief that the working-classes deserve a specific kind of treatment. Paying Sonia inconsistently, to the point that she feels the need to send round her boyfriend to to settle the debts, is symbolic of the carelessness and mistreatment those in power have to those who have less social and economic capital.
This puts Mia and Henry in the top 7% of the country. Despite their apathy, poor behaviour and negligence, their chances of earning good wages in later life are much higher than someone like Sonia who is having to scrape a living from a minimum wage cleaning job. Those immersed in the ‘different world’ governed by ‘different rules’ are likely to be more familiar with each other than with the challenges faced by ‘ordinary people’.
Not having to make any money, or take any responsibility, has removed a sense of purpose from Martha's life.
Look at the following extract.
We are left wondering what might have happened if Hugh had not been able to smother his guilt with financial compensation, and Martha had been forced to make her own income. Martha’s champagne socialism also chimes with New Labour’s approach to big business and indicates an era in which the government was attempting to marry, somewhat unsuccessfully, left and right-wing principles.
With twisted humour, she encourages the audience to reflect on the repercussions these attitudes may have. By blowing the lid off middle-class parenting, That Face reveals the archaic heart of the British class system to be very much alive and well.
Essay Topic:
‘Stenham’s play shows the cruelty of upper class life.’
How far and in what ways do you agree with this view?
Version 11© OCR 2017
That Face