Saved

What is the author's style in Saved by Edward Bond?

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The language in Saved is so authentic that the Hill and Wang edition has twenty-seven footnotes to explain the meaning of words or phrases. Some of the English critics, who do not come from the working-class, had trouble understanding some of the language, but all admitted that it certainly sounded natural enough. However, Bond's language is not simple transcription; it is carefully chosen and shaped to convey the play's motivation and themes. Its short, staccato structure, while basically used as aggression or to defend against the aggression of others, or even simply to keep others away, is also highly poetic and frequently comic. As Richard Scharine has pointed out in The Plays of Edward Bond, the characters in Saved mistrust words and for them "language as a tool functions only to hold others at a distance."