The Book About Everything Play Speech/Essay

To what extent does individuality affect conformity? ‘The Book about Everything’ a play adapted by Richard Tulloch from the novel by Guus Kuijer. There are a few characters that let their individuality shine and affect conformity, in both good and bad ways.
Father is a strict, condescending Priest who I think was most negatively affected and controlled by conformity as throughout the whole play we can see that he knows that his violent actions are wrong but still continues and doesn’t change. The actions that he makes are seen as right in his own opinion and the actions contribute to the conformity he follows. In spite of this we can see that his actions were mostly in the best interest of his family.  
As the reading out loud club started mother made a seat available to father so he could also watch Thomas read and join in on the festivities but father, not willing to break his own conformity, declines. We can see that a part of father wants to join them but the other half wants to stick with what he knows with the use of stage direction “father hesitates. He wants to join them but he wants to get away too…” emphasising that father has thoughts on breaking his rules and allowing himself to grow but is held back by what he thinks is right. In the end father sticks to his rules and stays imprisoned in his own thoughts by turning away from the group to go pray, showing us that he is so deep into his own form of conformity that there is no way of escape. Father cannot enter and learn from the conforming of the book club as his individual beliefs are stuck in his own conformity.
Towards the end of the play Mrs Van Amersfoort uses dialogue to get her opinion of Father out; she sees what father is inside. “That man is scared. He is scared of….people having fun. He’s scared someone will say men evolved from apes….he’s dying on the inside.” Depicting that everyone else sees what father is and how opinionated and prejudice he is. So all that effort father went through to...