Summary of scene 7
This Scene starts off with the male journalist asks Bridie about conditions in the camp. Explaining how the women were weighed regularly and outlining the contents of a will she drew up at this time, Bridie mentions a caramel. Questioned further about this caramel, which she and Sheila would suck on every Sunday night, Bridie explains how it came to be consumed. At Christmas 1943, to the amazement of the women, a group of male Australian POW’s managed to get to the barbed-wire fence. Then they sang a Christmas carol and were serenaded in turn by the female prisoners. After this even which so surprised the Japanese, that they did nothing about it, Sheila and Bridie decided to have a ‘proper Christmas dinner’, which meant finishing the caramel. A soldier who had winked at Bridie remained in her thoughts and when the war ended they married.

Importance of Scene 7
Scene 7 serves to reinforce for the audience the wartime bonds of friendship between the two women, a reoccurring theme within the play, and their shared caramel provides a powerful image in our minds of the deprivation they endured, but also of the tenacity, hope and friendship they clung to.

Distinctively Visual Elements of the Scene
• Caramel is symbolic because it symbolizes hope and survival of the girls. This shows that the caramel is the only luxury that they have in the camp.
• The male choir is symbolic of strength and self-determination because it shows how determined the men were, that they could see the women by going to the camp and not being at there work duty.
• Music in this scene is the male choir singing Christmas carols.
• Description of skinny Australian men who came to the camp to visit the girls, gives a distinctively visual image of the male prisoners.

The Effect of the Distinctively Visual Elements on the Responder
Scene 7 of the play shows the