Twenty Minutes With Mrs.Oakentubb (Summary)

Introduction:

 The play is a masterpiece of a widely known and highly held London born, civil servant, novelist, and playwright Frank Arthur. His famous publications include, Who killed Netta Maul , The Suva Harbour Mystery, Time's a Thief(French) and She would Not Dance. The play is rationally divisible into two parts, the background of the play and the present story. The play is a melodrama (a short play with intervals of tension and relaxation) with a tragic plot about 'He' who loses his happy family, due to careless and reckless driving of a lady Mrs. Oakentubb. In a fit of drunken mischief and having a betting with her friends, she takes two innocent lives, the whole family of 'He'.

Characters:

 The play consists of a precise number of three characters, 'He', She' (Mrs.Oakentubb) and 'Porter'.

The scene and setting: 

The scene of the play is a remote, rarely used railway station waiting room. It is an extremely chill winter season accompanied with raining cats and dogs, and fast wind.

Background:

 In the back ground Mrs. Oakentubb a prosperous wife, fond of wine and parties is drunk and has wagered betting of five pounds with her friends to drive from Stainthorpe Cross to the Coast in under fifteen minutes. It makes a long distance, apart from bends, blind corners and heavy traffic, worth covering in half an hour. In a reckless and rash drive, eventually, she comes to a blind turn, a lorry a head of her, while two pedestrians, a mother and her daughter, altogether unaware of their tragic end, on the pavement. She has two options either to collide against the lorry in front of her and lose her life or to run over pavement and crush two innocent lives. She opts for the latter and saves self. She is convicted eighteen month imprisonment, while 'He' loses her family, with no purpose to live.

The revived motive to live: 

`He' desperately desires to die, for having no purpose and courage to bear with the grief. He, resultantly joins Korean army,. so that he may die fighting. Once 'He' is seriously wounded and lying unconscious on the battle ground, when he comes to finds a Korean smiling girl bending over him, offering water. The smiling girl reminds him of his lost family including daughter. It inspires him to keep up with the life, to live and above all to take the revenge of mercilessly killed family.

A coincidence at Railway waiting Room: 

In a fit of vengeance, he is out to find the merciless killer of his family. One cold winter evening, while going to Stainthorpe, the residence of the killer, he has to wait for belated train in an old and rarely used railway waiting room. On entering the room, the person finds a lady already sitting in the waiting room, waiting for belated train. As a coincidence , as if it had been a good luck of one and the bad one of the other, after ice breaking, 'He' comes to know that the lady waiting together for the same train and same destination is no one but the lady he is looking for the killer of his family. 

His Argument for Capital Punishment

'He', argues that it was almost impossible to cover a distance of half an hour into fifteen minutes on a road with so many bends and blind turns besides a heavy traffic. He accuses her of driving so criminally fast. He renounces the court's conviction for a mere accident, on the contrary he calls it a plain deliberate heartless cruel murder, deserving a punishment not less than death.

The Killer plays Fox: 

Finding the person entirely determined to kill the lady, she plays fox. She starts imploring her not to spare her. She claims death an escape from the anguish that the scene of the murder of those lives stings her. She implores him to kill her, instead of sparing her life. He thinks sparing her life and leaving her into constant anguish as the most appropriate revenge. 

The Tragic End: 

He leaves the room leaving her weeping and bending on her knees, thinking sparing her life to be the most appropriate   revenge. He has the chance to peep into the room, but to his utter surprise he   finds the lady making fun of him. Feeling befooled, he enters  into the room and hurriedly leaves it with a bullet fired at her, resulting in her death.