Third Session

Third Session: Wednesday 13th November 2013

Today we were in the computer room and were given profiles for the characters of Tim Burton's 'A Nightmare Before Christmas'.

We had to choose which character we would like to make a monologue for. I picked Sally; a rag-doll type character, with detachable limbs (stuffed with fall leaves), who often falls apart, so she has to sew herself back together with a set of sewing needles and thread she always carries around with her. 

She's the main female character, that was created by Doctor Finkelstein (Halloween Town's resident and mad scientist), to be his slave; their relationship is rather tense as Finkelstein insists on keeping Sally under lock and key, to keep her away from the excitement of the outside world.

I wasn't really sure what to do with a monologue for her, but when I asked for advice Sir told me to think of Sally as a victim. A victim of what though? After a while of deciding, I chose for Sally to be a victim of rape/ abuse, as that was most common for female slaves back in the 19th century (even though the film is in the 20th Century):

There was a moment when it felt real.

When it felt like kindness.

When he showed kindness.

But I could see straight through him,

How his eyes turned to slits,

The way the smirk played upon his face,

How he watched my every move,

He was the wild beast and I was his pray.

It was power,

Power that he wanted, not me.

A slave for his pleasure, nothing more.

‘Obey your master’ they say,

‘Please the master’ they say,

‘Be rewarded by the master’ they say.

How is it a reward?

I gained no power, no pleasure, just pain.

Forcing himself upon me,

Forcing himself inside of me.

I was not my own.

There was one line that I wasn't really comfortable saying out loud, I probably shouldn't have wrote it, but it made for sense for it to be there, so when I spoke to Sir about it, he said if that's how I feel then it fits with the theme of 'Theater Of Cruelty', so I decided to leave it in.