About linda

We worked on short pieces of acting that showed the story of Linda key points

- Linda's downfall once having it all

- society's control over her life

- Amy's effect on Linda

- Luke sleeping with her

Narrative 

Linda is about a 40 year old woman named Linda who is at the height of her life, a great job, a loving husband, two beautiful daughters. She wants to advocate for the older generation and put them in the media more with her ad campaign but someone younger gets the job. Her husband cheats on her with a younger woman and her daughter is suffering from mental health issues. She sleeps with a coworker the same age as her daughter and gets blackmailed into resigning. Linda cant deal with all the issues and feels unappreciated and becomes the invisible women she talked about at the start of the play. She tries to help Alice by killing Amy but fails so kills herself because she doesn't believe she can fix the issues anymore and the world becomes too out of her control. The play focuses on the struggles for women in society especially older women who are treated as less important and less beautiful because of their age. 

Characters 

Bridget- 

Bridget is Linda's daughter and she shows how underrepresented women are in plays with her difficulty to find a good female monologue for her audition to a drama school and also how women are placed in a box of what is right for women as when she wanted to do a male monologue her family thought it was wrong showing how we are given gender stereo types were made to conform too 

Alice- 

Alice is a really interesting character, she sent a boy nudes and had to leave school to avoid the bullying, she became severely depressed and began to self harm and never leave the house. She wears a skunk onesie to hide herself from men and her character shows how men prey on young pretty girls and how we focus so much on beauty but when Alice was beautiful she was weak and preyed upon when she wore the onesie and wasn't beautiful she was no longer seen as beautiful and had no objectification asking the question why do we have such a focus on beauty and then prey on pretty girls. 

Luke- 

Luke is free spirited and a part of a religion of free thinkers who believe everything is fake. He sleeps with Linda for a bet showing how little it mattered to him however there is an underlying idea that he actually had feelings for her. 

Linda-

Linda is the title character. She is 40, she has everything but it all crumbles under her feet leaving her with nothing. Her mum committed suicide when she was a child which has led her to not know what it is to be a parent. She prioritises work over her family and isn’t there for her children when they need her. As a character i didn't like Linda because she wasn't there as much as her kids wanted her to be however i think that Linda never understands that shes not there and when she tries to be the issues take hold of her. Linda is also very controlling which i think is because of her mum as well as it would have left her feeling like she did something wrong and creates the idea that she as to control everything from then on not to let something like that happen again. 

Linda is also very hypocritical as she is mean to Alice about sending nudes yet she got pregnant with Alice very young which is no better. 

Neil- 

Neil is the father of the family, hes very absent and spends more time on his phone than with his children and Neil made me ask the question why do we view Linda as a bad mum but Neil is no better. At one point Neil watches Alice take a knife out of the room and does nothing, he draws to attention the high standards we place on mothers and why we don't hold fathers to the same standards, we expect women to work and mother. Neil cheats on Linda with a younger women Stevie which is another example of Linda being over powered by younger women.

Amy- 

Amy young and new to the company, she takes over Linda's position. Amy ruined Alice's life while at school by spreading the nudes and now wants to ruin Linda's by spreading news of her affair with Luke. Amy strives to be Linda but not old and asks the question what is so wrong with getting old. 

Themes- 

Ageism- ‘someone who might be a bit more objective about getting older’ ‘i know Amy's young’

Bad relationships with children- ‘i don't want to talk about it

Suicide ‘she steps of the ledge’

Bad parenting ‘shes not coming home’


How my views have changed-
after exploring the text and the characters i found the vulnerability in the story. At the start i wasn't a huge fan of any of the characters they were all so flawed that it was hard to like them but that's what makes it so real and true because as people we are all so flawed we are just like the characters. After looking into it i saw those flaws less and started to view characters as the people they are not their actions and began to empathise for some of them such as Linda, Alice and Bridget.