The Never-Never Nest

 

Significance of the Title

The title is very catchy and compact. It has a rhythmic beauty.The compound word ‘never-never’ means ‘hire purchase’  or ‘instalment payment system’.The title proclaims that in the instalment system anything never ever belongs to us, even our nest, until we pay off a great deal of amount in instalments. It sarcastically points towards the pretentious and pompous human nature of leading a showy life beyond their means.

Character sketch

Aunt Jane

A lady with enough practical wisdom and high care and concern .for his relatives. She appears to be very generous and gifted Jack and Jill two hundred pounds at the time of their wedding. She is pleased to see the comfortable life they lead. But when she knows that everything at their home is on hire purchase system and a very small portion of the things only they own, she disapproves their way of life. She becomes annoyed and is not ready even to sit on the furniture or travel in the care, which actually Jack does not possess fully. Still she feels pity towards the family and gives them a cheque for ten pounds to enable them pay one of their bills and own at least one thing for them.

Prepare a Review of the drama

The well known playwright Cedric Mount very sarcastically attacks one of the bad aspects of the modern consumerism – the hire purchase system – through his one act play ‘The Never-Never Nest’.The title itself shows that by this system one never ever owns anything, even one’s nest. The author presents a middle class family with a small and fixed income. The husband and wife, Jack and Jill, are attracted to the hire purchase system and buy all the household items on instalment basis. Jack is the sole bread-winner of the family, and he has the weekly income of only six pounds. But they have to pay seven pounds eight and eight pence a week as the instalment payment. To pay the rest of the amount,they are going to borrow money from some finance corporation. They plan to pay that loan amount also by instalment! The character of Aunt Jane exposes the downside of this system. She sarcastically asks them what portion of each household item they own for themselves. Jack and Jill are pathetically forced to answer that they only own a sing leg of their furniture and the steering wheel and one of the tyres of their car. Aunt Jane refuses to sit on the furniture and to travel in the car to show them that those things belong not to them but to someone else. She convinces them that the hire purchase system never lets them own things, but leads them from debt to debt, because their expenditure is more than their income.Finally she gives them a cheque for ten pounds to pay one of their bills and to own at least one thing for them. Jill immediately pays off the last instalment of their hospital bill, and tries to make their child their own!