Saved (Modern Classics)

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One may cite several key examples, starting with Fred’s sexual innuendo to Pam when she is on a day out with Len who laughs off Fred’s comments, saying, “Yer’ll be in the splash in a minute” (Bond 27).

When Pam’s baby is murdered, it is done by this same group of men who seem detached from any sense of right and wrong.This leaves one with a dilemma because if Bond’s interpretation of working-class lives is that they are disadvantaged then surely the answer is not Len’s acquiescence but rather a rebellion. Doing a gendered reading forty-plus years after the initial production draws the misogyny of Bond’s creation into stark relief. For example, he shows the scarcity of good careers and the abundance of dead-end jobs for London’s young, but he simultaneously highlights parenting skills in this specific community which are often sub-standard to the point of being dangerous. Fred initially resists abusing the baby, setting him apart from the others which leads to their discomfort, prompting Barry to involve Fred by suggesting “Why don’t you clout it?

Shocking … (back row from left) Dennis Waterman, Ronald Pickup and Tony Selby in the original production of Edward Bond's Saved. Even though Freud gives an atheistic view, his insights into how religion holds man in the bonds of conformity leads one to interpret Len as just such an ‘ideal,’ a man who really does try to love his neighbour and turn the other cheek too but such actions disadvantage him! Yet, Freud finds key links between religion, civilization, and violence which help us to better understand Saved. Saved deals with aspects of poverty including and beyond the all-important meaning of being without adequate financial means to subsist.

In conclusion, it is optimism and the eternally open hand of friendship, rather than the closed fist of violence, which Len extends that makes him symbolic of a better future. It is a scene which combines peace and violence; fishing is always regarded as a peaceful, relaxing pastime, but in one regard it is a form of hunting at its most ruthless – by suspending the bait in the water, the fisherman plays on the fish’s hunger to lure it and potentially kill it.

There was bound to be friction, as there would be with Blasted, which took things to another level entirely, but ulti­mately, dramatic integrity sides with Bond and Kane.Civilization pays no heed to all this; it merely prates that the harder it is to obey the more laudable the obedience. Such remarks show how great the divide was between the English classes even in the 1960’s and the disdain with which the upper classes regarded the poor. Fred and Pete subsequently tell blatant lies about their parts in the deaths of the children concerned exposing their total disrespect for life. When Len meets Fred after the latter has been released from prison, Len’s chief question is as follows. Saved is now considered a masterpiece, celebrated for its role in the fight to abolish theatre censorship (which finally happened in 1968), and as a prime influence on modern playwrights.