Under Milk Wood - Character Study 2c2l23

Under Milk Wood Character Analysis Captain Cat  Old blind ship captain – dreams and is haunted about his drowned shipmates and Rosie Probert (his lost lover) – he misses the old friends – ‘Oh, my dead dears!’ – they remind him of the good things in life that he can’t see like ‘buttermilk and whippets’ and ‘Tiddlers in a jamjar’  He provides energy, humour, and is generous  Asks as a narrator in the book – knows all of the goings on in Coronation Street – he is our eyes in the street – even though he has no eyes  Very important character – he gives an insight into everything that is going on in the road  Captain Cat lives split lives – half he lives in the past with his dead shipmates and Rosie Probert and half where he lives in the present and knows everything that is going on the village. – In his dreams the dead are alive to him as the noisy children –that he knows well - in the streets opposite him in real life  The characters in his present life he knows just as well as the ones in his dreams of his past life  He sees the past ‘through the voyage of his tears’ – like a cat he ‘sees in the dark’  Cries out for Rosie Probert in his sleep – has tattooed on his belly, ‘I Love You Rosie Probert’  Rosie Probert is the ‘one love of his sea –life that was sardined with women’ - Captain Cat had a lot of women – ‘sardined’ suggests he was packed with them Rosie Probert  Captain Cat’s dead lover – who appears in his dreams  A dead prostitute  Rosie Probert is the ‘one love of his sea –life that was sardined with women’  She says that Captain Cat was her ‘favourite husband’ – although she slept with many other men (as a prostitute)  Rosie Probert talks about love and sex Rev Eli Jenkins  Reverend of the town – also acts as a commentator on the life of the town – but very different to Captain Town  He is a gentle, ageing, absent minded (‘forgets to wash’) sentimentalist and poetry takes the place of religion in his life  Preaches to ‘empty Coronation Street that is rising and raising its blinds’  He preaches in verse  In his morning preach he talks about how small the town is and its features are in comparison to other places in Wales. Even though he makes Llareggub seem insignificant but also makes Wales seem beautiful and big.  He loves Milk Wood and his town – very patriotic  Jenkins prays over the wood and for God to keep and ‘lovely eye on all poor creatures born to die’  He sums up Under Milk Wood by saying ‘we are not wholly bad or good who live our lives under Milk Wood’ –he included himself in the statement by saying ‘we’ – showing he included himself in all the goings on in the town and doesn’t himself  The Rev Jenkins accepts the people in the town as they – when Polly Garter sings about her lost lovers and her promiscuity he simply says ‘praise the lord we are a musical nation’  Has written the White Book of Llaerggub and dreams of the Eisteddfodau (a welsh cultural festival celebrating their language)  In his house there are portraits of famous bards, and preachers.  He has a picture of his mother with a ‘wedding ring waist’ suffering ‘in her stays’ (a corset)  The Reverend has no pictures of his father who was ‘scythed to the bone one harvest by mistake when sleeping with his weakness in the corn’ – his weakness is drink – the Reverend says ‘Poor Dad’ – sense of Myfanwy Price  Miss Price dreams of her ‘lover’ (Mr Mog Edwards) – in her dream he tells her he loves her more than the ‘calico, candlewick, dimity…’ etc. (all things he sells in his shop).- wishing it were true – wanting him to recognise her above his shop

 She only dreams of their physical relationship which they don’t have – they send letters to each other but never meet in real life- restricted to the letters they write to each other and their interactions in their dreams –  In her dream there is an undercurrent sexual references but they all are very domestic and innocent – ‘throw away your little bed-socks’ ‘I will knit you a wallet’ – ‘I will warm the sheets like an electric toaster’ – cosy comfortable relationship  She wants to look after him and ‘knit *him+ a wallet’ and ‘warm *his+ heart’  Miss Price and Mog Edwards fit together – he is a draper and she is a dressmaker, he supplies what she needs  She is ‘lonely loving hotwaterbottled body’ – she lonely (because she is not with him – but she loves him – an almost unrequited love)  She is very quaint and domestic and innocent ‘Me, Miss Price, in my pretty pink housecoat, deft at the clothesline, natty as a jenny – wren, then pit pat back to my egg in its cosy… my homemade plum and butterpat.’  There shops are their life – in their letters that is basically all they talk about – she is too preoccupied with her orderliness  In Miss Price’s letter she signs it with 21 X’s – showing her innocence and inexperienced  Miss Price wants to marry him Mog Edwards  In love with Miss Price – sends letters to her – ‘God will be with you always Myfanwy Price and keep you lovely for me in His Heavenly Mansion’ – recognises that they will not be together in life – and will only meet in death in God’s ‘Heavenly Mansion’  ‘I love you until Death do us part and them we shall be together for ever’ – life is what is restricting them – death is when they will be together  He dreams about her ‘all dripping wet’ and sitting on his lap – more sexual intentions  Mr Edwards is too preoccupied with his shop and drapers business to ever act on his love with her  The stamp on the letter that he sends says ‘shop at Mog’s’ – ironic because she won’t Myfanwy Price and Mog Edwards There ionate love is all they need – they able preserve their dreams of ion by preventing them ever meeting – they enjoy dreaming about one another, more than they think they would if they were in a real relationship Dylan Thomas might be suggesting that for some people love is best when left to the imagination  Miss Price ‘looks around with pleasure at her own neat neverdull room which Mr Mog Edwards will never enter’ Jack Black  Dreams of scaring away young couples from the ‘double bed of the wood’  His resistance to sexual enjoyment makes him ‘alone and savag*e+’ – he ties his nightshirt to his ankles and the flies of his ‘religious tros’ are sewn up – furtive and perverted  He is religious and wants to rid sexual sin – but ironically he takes perverted pleasure (he ‘pads out, torched and bibled, grimly, joyfully, into the already sinning dusk’) chasing the couples and ‘driving out the bare bold girls from the sixpenny hops’ Mr Waldo  Mr Waldo has many jobs – can’t keep one down  He is messy – ‘black boots neat and tidy in the washing basin’ ‘a slice of cold bread pudding under the pillow’  He has a huge appetite for food, drink and women – part of his nature  Mr Waldo is similar to his father – shown by the fact that the gossipers talk about them both – confusing you about which one they are talking about  His father was insane and ended up in an asylum ‘crying for his ma’ – like Mr Waldo does in his dream – one of the two would do anything ‘for a drink’ – selling their wives ‘sewing machine’  Waldo was a wild child ‘stealing currants’ – all the gossiping women had ideas about how to discipline him  Mr Waldo is haunted by his wives and mother who worry about what neighbours and gossipers will say – although Thomas, himself, does not condemn him and his way of life but accepts his promiscuity

 Mr Waldo is alone in the bed when he dreams – which is ironic as he has had so many wives and is known for his promiscuity  Mr Waldo has married many people in his life ‘Matti Richards… Dulcie Prothero *etc.+ to be your awful wedded wife’ – ‘awful’ suggests the women are awful and not him himself – not very choosy in who he marries  The Little Boy (Mr Waldo) screams ‘No’ suggesting a side of him doesn’t like to be in restricted marriages  He is involved in an affair with Polly Garter Mrs Ogmore – Pritchard  Owner of a guest house – doesn’t actually have anyone staying there because she wouldn’t want them to mess it up – she wouldn’t want someone ‘putting their feet on *her+ carpets and sneezing in *her+ sheets’  She is wearing an ‘ice-berg’ white nightgown and is ‘under *her+ virtuous polar sheets’ – she is cold  Her husbands were ‘maddened’ by her cleanliness and ‘swabbing and scrubbing…fume of polish’ – Mr Pritchard ‘ironically swallowed disinfectant’ to kill himself and Mr Ogmore killed his ‘collie’ and also died  She is controlling and obsessive about cleanliness and hygiene – treats her dead husbands like children – they are made to recite their ‘tasks in order’ – ‘I must dress behind the curtain’ – sexless and loveless  ‘I must boil the drinking water because of germs’ – ironic because Mr Ogmore dies  ‘before you let the sun in, mind it wipes its feet’ – she is so controlling that she even wants to control the sun  Mrs Ogmore – Pritchard calls her husbands by their surnames showing how formal and cold their marriages were  Even though they were not her husbands at the same time they are portrayed as the same and equal to her –‘I love you both’  There is an ‘acid love in her voice’ – showing her love destroys them and destroys their love for her  She coldly says that they ‘must take’ their clothes off – orders them to sleep with her  Orders herself to go to sleep –‘wills herself to cold, quick sleep’  Captain Cat warns the readers that Mrs Ogmore – Pritchard ‘swabs the front glassy… Every step is like a bar of soap… that old Bessie would beeswax the lawn to make the birds slip.’ Captain Cat also jokes that she would ‘polish the potatoes’ Mr Ogmore  He one of the dead husbands of Mrs Ogmore – Pritchard  Mr Ogmore was a linoleum salesman  Mr Ogmore and Mr Pritchard both are ‘planning the loveless destruction of their glass widow’  He killed his collie - but described by the gossipers as a ‘proper gentleman’  Controlled by Mrs Ogmore – Pritchard Mr Pritchard  Failed bookmaker  Deceased husband of Mrs Ogmore – Pritchard  Drank cleaning liquid to commit suicide  Looked at women ‘undressing through the keyhole’ and used to shout ‘Tallyho  Maddened by Mrs Ogmore – Pritchard and her cleaning Mr Pugh  Is a schoolmaster who dreams of killing his wife – ‘here’s your arsenic dear… and your weedkiller biscuit’ then entering the bedroom ‘Here’s your… nice tea deer’  He has a loveless marriage with Mrs Pugh and is always scheming on ways to kill her – ‘poisons her with his eyes’ – reading ‘lives of the Great Poisoners’  Loves and takes pleasure in hating Mrs Pugh and plotting to kill her  Their marriage is ‘cold and grey’  He schemes to make a ‘alone in his hissing laboratory of his wishes… mixes especially for Mrs Pugh a venomous porridge unknown to toxologists which will scald and viper her until her ears fall off like figs’  Timid and weak against Mrs Pugh’s controlling and insulting nature – calls him a pig

Mrs Pugh  Controlling and insulting to Mr Pugh – takes pleasure in always having the last word – ‘persons with manners do not read at table, Some persons were brought up in pigsties’ – she has a cold sense of humour  Controls Mr Pugh ‘Give me my glasses’ – when Mr Pugh gives her a tea she immediately says (without trying it) that there is ‘too much sugar’  ‘He is going to arrest Polly Garter, mark my words… for having babies’ – she is cold and unpleasant  Gets told by Willy Nilly that Mr Pugh has brought a book ‘called Lives of the Great Poisoners’ Mr and Mrs Pugh love to hate each other – making their marriage work. They both have a sense of humour and both know of Mr Pugh’s intentions – which both almost joke about – ‘What’s that book by your trough, Mr Pugh?’ ‘It’s a theological work, my dear. ‘Lives of the Great Saints’’ Butcher Beynon and Mrs Beynon  Butcher Beynon loves to tease and shock Mrs Beynon by saying he sells dodgy meat – even he ‘pulls the legs of his’ own dreams by ‘hunting…wild giblets’  They both ‘enjoy…their every morning hullabaloo’ – Both enjoy the teasing and Mrs Beynon acts horrified when Butcher Beynon jokes with her that they are eating their cats ‘brother’  They love each other – Mrs Beynon to believe everything her husband says to act outraged  When Lily Smalls calls Butcher Beynon the ‘biggest liar in town’ she gets very defensive of her husband saying that he ‘never tells a lie’ Mr and Mrs Cherry Owen  Mr Cherry Owen dreams of drink – which turns into a fish that he still drinks! – shows his alcoholism  They have a one room home in Donkey Street  Mrs Cherry Owen relishes in his drunkenness and is cheerful about his drunken antics – they love each other even though Cherry Owen is immoral  They both ‘laugh in delight’ when Mrs Cherry Owen tells him about his behaviour - ‘then you did a little dance on the table… said you were the King of Solomon and I was your Queen Sheba’ – she even laughs at the fact he threw ‘sago’ at her and ‘missed *her+ by an inch’  They are a happy couple even though their relationship is a bit immoral – Cherry Owen says that Mrs Cherry Owen’s ‘got two husbands … one drunk and one sober’ Mrs Cherry Owen says ‘aren’t I a lucky woman? Because I love them both’ Mr Willy Nilly and Mrs Willy Nilly  They are also another immoral couple in the play – but are quite happy  They steam open the mail so that they can read people’s private affairs – they do this together as a couple  Mr Willy Nilly relates the contents of other peoples mail and gossips before telling what’s in their own mail  No-one seems to mind and they ask him what is in their post – they like to hear about their letters from him  Mr Willy Nilly, along with the gossip women, provide private information into people’s lives to the audience and to the other people in the town Mr and Mrs Organ Morgan  Mr Organ Morgan is the church organist – obsessed with music –and dreams of chaotic music  He ignores and neglects his wife because of his music – they are pole opposites – he dreams of music and she dreams of ‘silence’  Mrs Organ Morgan is a ‘groceress’ and sleeps ‘like a dormouse’ – suggesting she is silent and curled up – sleeps in a ‘cove of wool’ and sleeps ‘dulcet*ly+’ (silently) – while ‘trumpeting Organ Morgan’ at her side  When Mrs Organ Morgan is talking about Polly Garter’s children to Organ Morgan he doesn’t listen to her (providing comic effect) – ‘Organ Morgan, you haven’t been listening to a word I said. Its organ organ all the time with you…’ she the bursts into tears – feels neglected and upset with her marriage

The Dai Breads  Mr Dai Bread is a bigamist baker who dreams of ‘Turkish Girls. Horizontal’ – even though he has two wives  Dai Bread in the morning rushes off to the bakery – not very nice about his wives ‘why can’t they sew them… there’s wives for you’ – however he satisfies both of them  He is described by his wives as a ‘little man with pink lips’ – he acts manly, though, by ‘beating his chest with his fists’  Mrs Dai Bread One – ‘nice to be comfy, nice to be nice’ – rather traditional, motherly and happy with the relationship of the three of them together – not bothered with what she looks like – plain. She satisfies Dai Bread’s housewife needs  Mrs Dai Bread is a gypsy who is wears a ‘silky scarlett petticoat above *her+ knees’ – she is sultry and ‘gaudy,’ scarlet is a sexual colour - to satisfy Dai Breads bedroom needs – fortune teller  They all live happily together – showing polygamy works in this relationship  In the Crystal ball that Dai Bread 2 holds shows how Dai Bread chooses one of the wives but they can’t see which one because of ‘the mean old clouds’ Polly Garter  Promiscuous – has many children from many different men – is having an affair with Mr Waldo  She dreams of ‘babies’ showing her love of having them  She says that her baby is thinking ‘you’re no better than you should be Polly, and that’s good enough for me’ – she is the example of the town and reflects the saying by Rev Eli Jenkins ‘we are not wholly bad or good who live our lives under Milk Wood’  Her next statement is ‘Oh, isn’t life a terrible thing, thank God’ – showing her love of her ‘terrible’ life and immoral behaviour  She sings while she works – especially of her lost lovers - and of her one love Willy Wee ‘who is dead, dead, dead’ – who she will never have such loving again – when she is with other boys or men she thinks of him  Polly is innocent in her promiscuity – child-like singing and says that the boys she sleeps with are ‘good bad boys from the lonely farms’  Both Thomas and the people of Llareggub accept her as she is – even though she is immoral she is happy Nogood Boyo  Nogood Boyo dreams of ‘nothing’ – emphasizing his incompetence and laziness – a fisherman that never catches anything  We know that he is ‘up to no good in the wash-house’  The gossip women say that he goes out ‘fishing every day and all he ever brought back was a Mrs Samuels’ – reveals that he does nothing on the boat – but he does ‘fish’ for women  A child tells her mother that Nogood Boyo gave her ‘three pennies’ – he also fantasizes about Mrs Dai Bread two and Japanese Geisha girls  The corset he catches he offers to a naked Mrs Dai Bread 2 in ‘his mind’s slow eye’ – he also offers her a bite of an apple – like in the temptation in the Garden of Eden – he is bad and thinks he is tempting  ‘I want to be a good Boyo, but nobody’ll let me’ – this is not true as he seems to enjoy being bad  The last scene we see him in is when he is in the wash-house with Lilly Smalls Lilly Smalls  Lilly Smalls dreams of a ‘mogul’ catching her in the wash-house – showing that she would like to be a bit promiscuous  Dreams of love and ‘royalty who all night long went larking with her’ – she is Mrs Beynon servant – longs for a more exciting life  She looks at herself in the mirror and criticises herself playfully – ‘where you get the hair from? Got it from an old tom cat, Give it back then love’ ‘where did you get that nose from… You’ve got it on upside down’  She is quite narcissistic  Split personality – talks to herself – funny

Mae Rose – Cottage  Dreams of peeling off her skin – exposing herself ‘as raw as an onion’ – she dreams of herself waiting in different places for ‘Mister Right’ – searching for him everywhere – longs for a lover  ‘draws circles of lipstick round her nipples’ – ‘I’m fast. I’m a bad lot…I’ll sin till I blow up’ – she has never been kissed but longs to be sexual and promiscuous – pretends and fantasises by drawing lipstick around her nipples Gossamer Beynon and Sinbad Sailors  She is a schoolteacher and daydreams of erotic events with Sinbad Sailors  Dreams of a ‘rough ready man with a bushy tail’ – ‘at last my love’  Gossamer Beynon ‘high heels out of school’ – she acts proud and sophisticated – she says that she ‘doesn’t care if he is common’ she ‘wants to gobble him up’ – she is also quite good looking as men seem to undress her with their eyes – especially Sinbad Sailors  Sinbad Sailors wishes that Gossamer was his – and thinks that she is too educated for him  They never meet and they probably won’t ever know the feelings they have for each other  He also wants his grandmother to die so that he can have the pub to himself Ocky Milkman  Dreams he is emptying his bottles into the river – hates his job and is ‘weeping like a funeral’ – maybe mourning the churns he just threw into the river  ‘his milk’s as fresh as dew. Half dew it is…Ocky, watering the town’ Captain Cat jokes that Ocky Milkman waters down his milk from the Dewi River  We also are informed by the gossip women that he ‘keeps *his wife+in the cupboard with the empties.’ – they also have never seen his wife Gwennie and the Boys  Gwennie is like Polly Garter – a child who tells the boys to kiss her or give her a penny – young and promiscuous Bessie Bighead  Dreams of the only love she will ever have – a boy who was dared to kiss her ‘when she wasn’t looking’  He is now dead  She is simple and innocent – gentle, she has a special page in the White Book of Llareggub – she was ‘born in a barn’ and ‘left on a doorstep’ – she is quite happy and sings – lived in the dark before she was kissed  Bessie still puts daisies on the grave of the boy who was dared to kiss her – sad and melancholy Lord Cut-glass  Has questionable sanity – dreams of clocks  Lord Cut – Glass ‘lives in a house and a life at siege’ – this is a contrast to other characters who don’t live by time and live quite fully being preoccupied by other things to defeat time, however Lord Cut –Glass lives in fear that ‘any minute or dark day no, the unknown enemy will loot’ Mary Ann Sailors  She represents time in the play – announces her age every morning  She dreams of the Garden of Eden – she thinks that Llareggub is the ‘chosen land’  Owns the Sailors Inn – it is open all the time – this is illegal however they live in the happy freedom from outside laws and regulations