Basic Study : MA Final in Seven College Under Dhaka University
Subject Name: Modern Drama (Study Guide)
Subject Code: ENM 504
Written and Edited Credit : Md. Layek Ali
Use : Non-Commercial with free Education Purpose
First Published: February 2022
ISBN: 984-70020-0745-0
Text: You Never Can Tell
Writer: George Bernard Shaw
Text Type: Explanations
Act: I
Exp. These lines, spoken by Dolly to Valentine, have been extracted from Act I of the play You Never Can Tell written by George Bernard Shaw. Here Dolly regrets to be related to a celebrated person. The play begins on a fine summer’s morning in 1896 at a seaside resort in southern England. Dolly, a teenage girl, sets the story going. She comes to a dentist, Valentine, to have her tooth extracted. After her tooth being extracted, her twin brother joins Dolly and invites Valentine to lunch with them at the Marine Hotel. Valentine hesitates to accept the invitation because it is impossible for him to lunch at the hotel with two perfect strangers (because they lack English manners). He asks them if they are related to and before he finishes Dolly in despair quickly says that they are. Dolly here means that they are related to a person who is a reputed authoress that is her mother, Mrs. Clandon. But it is very annoying to Dolly to be known as the daughter of a celebrated person. She feels utter humiliation of being related to a celebrated person. The irony lies in the lines is that Doly means that they are related to their mother but Valentine thinks that they ‘are related to a gentleman.
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