Saved (Modern Classics)

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Bond presents Len as an agent of change, of progression, and this matches the biblical instruction to leave grievances in the past and move forward (turn the other cheek). The beginning lulls us into a false sense of security with a very funny opening scene between Len and Pam, both in their young twenties, not quite having one-night-stand sex but leading up to it.

It’s widely believed that this particular work played a decisive role in the battle against stage censorship, because of its thematic power and skilful writing and construction; yet the censor’s demands, had they been met, would have reduced the play to an emasculated wreck – a mere series of unconnected scenes without any “bite”. In 2011, Maddy Costa wrote an article in the Guardian newspaper entitled, “Edward Bond’s Saved: We didn’t set out to shock. 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 helps to explain the increasing depravity of the acts performed on the child before it is killed.This in itself bewilders them -religion has nothing to do with their parents’ personal lives, or our economic, industrial and political life, and is contrary to the science and reason they are taught at other times. Although Fred is glad to have been released he is edgy and tense, and is disgruntled to notice that Pam is there. The play’s characters work menial jobs or are unemployed, they live in council or poor-quality housing, and they have few or no luxuries in life apart from cigarettes and the occasional night out. However, maybe the author’s comment is ironic – Len is uneducated and from a working-class background so we should expect a lower-than-average standard of conduct from him.

Since Harry has just been talking about Fred, ‘yer man’ refers to Fred and Len’s missed opportunity of killing him. Of course, Fred is not being threatened by the fish; but neither is he catching the fish to eat them. because it is customary not to wake sleeping babies; when Barry starts pushing the pram around, Pete shows signs of (perhaps excited) nervousness: “’e’ll ‘ave the little perisher out! The three young men were trying to get to grips with a troubling scene in which they lark about with a baby in its pram, poking it, pulling off its nappy, goading each other until they stone it to death. Benedict Nightingale stated in 2001 that initially, the play divided reviewers more than any play since Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts.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). Civilization pays no heed to all this; it merely prates that the harder it is to obey the more laudable the obedience. Both the mother and daughter are shown to have an active, desiring sexuality, and the violence of the events which unfold are a direct result of their sexual impudence.

For Bond, the next generation need to understand that “teaching understanding not faith” is the solution. As far as the assault being unmotivated, one could interpret the whole scene as simply being a rejection of life; the baby represents life in its purest form, and the gang are people for whom life has gone sour.It is not often in that hardened audience you hear the cry 'Revolting' and 'Dreadful' and the smack of seats vacated, but you did last night," commented Peter Lewis, theatre critic for the Daily Mail, in one of the relatively positive reviews.

Also, why does Bond speak of a ‘frustrated underclass’ if this does not imply sympathy for rebellious acts, like the dramatic one he depicts in the play. Even if one interprets the killing of the baby as a metaphor, which seems likely to have been Bond’s intention, we are still left with the issue of violence in society as part of its very fabric.

Just like Bond, Freud draws our attention away from the act of violence but then focuses on discovering the root cause and potential effects of the violence. Len’s interest and his continual references to the child as ‘it’ impel us to reconsider his character. Len understands the grimness of his own life and that of his community and he faces this with endurance. But what he pinned down so vividly in 1965 is something that seems even more true today: that if you create an unjust society, in which those at the bottom of the heap are condemned to a life of meaningless materialism, then you are simply laying up trouble for the future.