Caroline is an Irish widow, originally from Navan, but moved to England in 1991 with her husband, Jim. Jim died in a car crash in 2001. They moved to England to be closer to their daughter and her husband. Her age is irrelevant to the plot- she is representative of any widow or person who has suffered loss. She is average/short, and shows signs of lost love in her appearance. She has never worked, and lives off Jim’s life insurance and pension fund.
She spends her days feeling lonely and lost. She has very few friends and the only person she really speaks to is her daughter, who tries to make as much time for her as she can, as she worries about her well being, but finds it difficult. They have a good relationship and were both very close to Jim.
Caroline lost faith when Jim died, after years of devoted religious worship. Both her and Jim were Roman Catholics. She visits Jim’s grave regularly, however which is buried in their local church, as that was his wish.
The many years she spent with Jim were happy- he was a good man, and she was utterly dependent on him in nearly every way. She is in constant battle with herself over the desire to let the past go and her inability to do so. She constantly falls back into old routine; desperately clinging onto the life she had with Jim- she has changed very little in the house since his death. However this reliance turns into misery, depression and lethargy, which comes in episodes before she feels okay again, wondering whether she should leave or start again. However, she falls back into comfort and the familiar as usual. We track her progress as she goes from misery and nostalgia to possible hope and back to nostalgia again.
She has suffered post-natal depression since the birth of their daughter, which accounts for a large amount of her depressive turmoil and inability to move on. She has never had medication, as she is not aware of her illness.
How and Why
I created Caroline primarily out of a wish to work with a different aged actor. I found inspiration in family members who have suffered loss and have suffered with depression. I wanted to create a film about the second half of life from a nostalgic, regretful viewpoint and so created a character to allow me to do so. As the piece is a monologue I didn’t see things such as physical attributes or background as a primary focus for the character, but rather her internal turmoil and thought processes.
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