Friday, November 21, 2014

In the play Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, who is the character of Roo?

Roo is Olive's sometimes-lover, a working man who spends
most of the year in the fields performing manual labor. He is a member of an older class
of men, preferring to work with his hands instead of pursuing higher education,
learning, or business; this gives him an air of rugged masculinity, despite his obvious
devotion to Olive. The text describes him in a fairly complete
manner:



ROO:
Pleased to meet yer. (Smiles slowly at her and PEARL relaxes a little. He is a
man's man with a streak of gentleness, a mixture that
invites confidence... recent experiences have etched a faint line of bewilderment
between his eyes, a sign of the first serious mental struggle he has ever had in his
life...

(Lawler, Summer of the Seventeenth
Doll
, Google
Books)



Roo is a member of the
Australian "bush," the collective of working men who see each other as "mates," people
with a personal connection deeper than family. His connection to the working class makes
it hard for him to fit in with Olive and her upper-class friends; however, harsh
economic times have forced Roo to abandon his mates and work in the city. In his inner
heart, Roo believes that he will marry Olive and live in happiness; in reality, his
actions and their shared deceits prevent them from ever reaching that romantic end. Roo
discovers that he cannot compete with the city, and similarly cannot compete with the
younger generation.

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