The conversation in suspense in 'Mother Sunday' by Graham Swift

Abstract

In the opening scene of Mother Sunday (2016), Graham Swift presents a conversation between a master and a maid, both naked. It is a moment that is suspended in an inner dialogue and a dialogue between bodies and eyes. The power relationship is reversed in the silence that intertwines past and present, and in the affirmation of a protagonist who breaks with her class to become a writer. This conversation on a special day is the expression of a liberation. It is represented in an intermediality with painting, and it takes a political and finally a poetic dimension.