The Writing Experiment by Hazel Smith

1 HAVE YOU BEEN HERE BEFORE?

2 NO,THIS IS THE FIRST TIME...OK,THANK YOU VERY MUCH

1 HAVE YOU BEEN HERE BEFORE?

2 NO,THIS IS THE FIRST TIME...OK,THANK YOU VERY MUCH

1 NO,GRACE,YOU NEVER HAVE TOLD ME ABOUT IT BUT SOMEDAY YOU

MUST

2 NO,I HAVE NEVER HANDLED A PROBATE CASE,I’VE TOLD YOU THAT

1 THANK YOU GRACE I MEAN YOU’RE NOT A COOK...YOU

2 I MEAN I COME HOME FROM WORK AND EXPECT A MEAL ON THE TABLE

I MEAN A MAN IS A WOMAN

1 SHE RESENTS IT

2 OH,THAT’S A PROBLEM

1 SO WHAT IF SHE DID

2 YOU MUST NOT TELL MANDA IT HER BIRTHDAY PLEASE DON’T TELL

ADAM

1 MANDA SHE LOVE A GOOD JOKE YOU KNOW.SHE A LAWYER TOO.

2 LET’S WASH SOME DISHES.

From A Letter for Queen Victoria (Wilson 1977, pp. 55–6)

This is not functional dialogue of the type we find in Death of a Salesman,
and interaction does not occur in the normal way. A response to a partic-
ular statement often seems (though to varying degrees) unconnected with
the statement that precedes it. For example, ‘that’s not what I did’ could
conceivably be a response (if rather an odd one) to ‘she broke her neck’, but
‘thank you’ does not seem to follow on at all from ‘oh you were’. At other
times the response may seem to fit, ‘have you been here before/no, this is
the first time.. .’, but such chunks of the dialogue are repeated over and
over again in a mantric way which subverts dramatic conventions. The
exchange doesn’t establish a particular context and then develop it, as the
dialogue of a substantively realist drama such as Death of a Salesman does.
Rather it hints at a context, and then withdraws from it or slides into
another one. So there seems to be a secret, ‘no, Grace, you never have told
me about it but someday you must’, but it is followed by an allusion to a
probate case with no tangible connection to the previous remark. Instead
the dialogue turns into an apparent domestic dispute about cooking,

Dialoguing 115