Under Milk Wood – the Voices

Under milk wood is a radio play written by Dylan Thomas, it tells the story of a day in the life of a small town called Llareggub.

The play is set in the 1950’s, and it has two narrators, called Voice 1 and Voice 2, which act as dramatic devices and move the play along in space and time.

The Voices give poetry to the play by giving the listener Thomas’s view of the town. The two voices are Thomas’s opportunity to act as a guide to Llareggub. He uses the Voices throughout the play, the first Voice starts and ends the play, the characters seem to interact with the voices, and for example the characters often finish off lines that the voices started. One example of this is in the introduction of Mr Pugh, the retired school teacher.

First voice: “Mr Pugh”

Mr Pugh: “remembers ground glass as he juggles his omelette”

It does the same thing further down the page when it says,

First Voice: “Mrs Pugh”

Mrs Pugh: “nags the salt cellar”

The Voices also build a relationship with the listener, they seem to be trustworthy and to have a sense of humour, and this helps the listener to learn about the characters and to understand the town. An example of this could be found in the prologue when the First Voice addresses the listener personally by saying “Only your eyes are unclosed” and again when it says “And you alone can hear the invisible starfall”. The effect of this makes the listener feel like the Voices are talking to them alone.

The Voice also seems to invite the listener into the town, when it tells us“ Hush, the babies are sleeping” it then goes into a string of images about the people of the town: “the farmers, the fishers, the tradesmen and pensioners, cobbler, schoolteacher, postman and publican”. Strings of images convey very strong feelings and can get across the atmosphere of a place very well. This particular string of images is telling the listener all the people in the town who is asleep. The effect of it is the Voice becoming friendlier with the listener and telling him/her about the town and its people.

The play has many poetic effects, which are mostly used by the Voices, Alliteration is used often to add depth to Thomas’s descriptions. An example of alliteration in the play is when the first voice is talking about Bessie Bighead when she’s asleep, the voice says “sleep until the night sucks out her soul and spits it into the sky” Thomas seems to be using wet sucking sounds for the lonely old lady.

The Voices use similes often, to compare one thing to another; one example of a simile in the play is when voice one describes Mr. Cherry Owen as being “as drunk as a deacon”. The effect of this emphasises the drunkenness of the character because the listener would not expect a deacon to be drunk.

The play uses many metaphors (talking about one thing as though it was another thing). An example of a metaphor in the play is the description