One of Sheila and Bridie’s fellow detainees in the Japanese prison camps. Miss Dryburgh forms a choir with a group of women, enlisting Sheila as a singer and asking Bridie to mark the beat with her shoe-horn. When Miss Dryburgh and the majority of the choir die of malaria, Sheila arranges sonatas so that she and Bridie can continue to bring music to the prison camp.
Get the entire The Shoe-Horn Sonata LitChart as a printable PDF.
Miss Dryburgh Character Timeline in The Shoe-Horn Sonata
The timeline below shows where the character Miss Dryburgh appears in The Shoe-Horn Sonata. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act One, Scene Five
...she was so jealous of Sheila’s involvement that she went simply to watch. And since Miss Dryburgh —the British missionary who organized the entire thing—needed someone to keep time, she ask Bridie...
(full context)
Act Two, Scene Eleven
...choir “disband[ed]” in April of 1945 because too many of the singers had died, including Miss Dryburgh . As such, both women felt depressed and hopeless, but Sheila decided to arrange sonatas,...
(full context)
