The Middle Class Theme Analysis

In Absurd Person Singular and his other plays from the 1970s, Sir Alan Ayckbourn offered a scathing critique of the British middle class. For most of the early 20th century, the British class system was mostly split between the working class (families whose incomes came mostly from manufacturing-based jobs) and the upper class (families whose incomes came mostly from financial and managerial jobs, or who lived off of an inheritance). That changed following the end of World War Two: Great Britain (rather like the United States) became a country with a large and influential middle class.

All six of the characters in Absurd Person Singular are recognizably middle-class. To begin with, the men’s professions aren’t immediately tied to manufacturing or some other kind of physical labor (which would probably make them working-class), but nor are the men financially secure to the point where they don’t have to worry about money. One is an architect, one runs a small bank (we know it’s small because he suggests that a single customer’s deposit could make or break his business), and one is in some kind of real estate-related field (he’s described as having many tenants and having put up many buildings). They all have to go to work, but what, exactly, they do in the course of a day is never made clear. Furthermore, the three women don’t appear to work for a living, but have enough disposable income to buy non-essential items like washing machines. Financially speaking, all six characters are doing well, but not to the point where they can afford to do nothing. And this can be downright nerve-wracking: the characters are obsessed with making money and entering the ranks of the upper class, but they’re also terrified by the possibility of failing and falling back in with the working class. This, in a nutshell, was the dilemma of the British middle class of the 1970s.

Ayckbourn explores this dilemma throughout his play, but especially through the characters of Sidney Hopcroft and Ronald Brewster-Wright. Over the course of the play, Sidney gets richer and Ronald gets poorer. However, it’s never clear why; the characters’ jobs are vaguely defined, and as the play goes on they become vaguer, not clearer. In the first act, Sidney Hopcroft appears to own a few general stores, but by Act Two, it’s unclear how he’s earning his money: he just says he’s had some “lucky hunches” (you wonder if even Sidney himself completely understands the source of his own success). Because we don’t understand how the characters make their money, we can’t fully understand why their economic status keeps rising or falling. Ronald Brewster-Wright’s status appears to be going down, while Sidney’s appears to be going up, but it could just as easily be the other way around. Such is the inherent instability of middle class life, Ayckbourn suggests.

Ayckbourn matches his characters’ economic instability with cultural instability. The six characters have no real heritage or traditions to fall back on (which is especially striking, considering that the play takes place during the Christmas season, when many families celebrate their traditions). The characters never even discuss their own backstories, or refer to any event that takes place long before the beginning of the play. Their conversations are nauseatingly present-tense, revolving around crass products and incomprehensible business deals. This could then be interpreted as Ayckbourn’s commentary on middle-class values. Bereft of a real heritage (unlike the upper class or the working class), the new middle class of the 1970s strives to make its own values and traditions and legacy, but without much immediate success. Indeed, one of Ayckbourn’s most important insights is that the defining feature of the middle class is precisely its lack of a stable identity and set of beliefs: everything is in flux.

In the absence of a strong culture or sense of identity, the middle-class characters of Absurd Person Singular are often alienated from one another—sometimes comically, sometimes tragically. Such is the case throughout the play, but never more so than at the end of Act Two, during which four of the characters make idle chitchat and tinker around in someone else’s kitchen while Eva Jackson, supposedly their friend, tries to commit suicide in various ways. The six characters in the play are supposed to be a community, looking out for each other. Instead, they seem oblivious to each other: no values or beliefs, aside from a shallow materialism, bind them together. The flaws of the middle class are at the core of Absurd Person Singular, and in a way all the other important themes of the play emanate from this one, underlying theme.