Author: Harold Pinter

Title: Ashes to Ashes

Publishing house: Faber and Faber

Published: 1996

Characters:

Devlin: He is forty years old. Rebecca is Devlin`s friend.

Rebecca: She is forty years old. Devlin is her friend. She is a little mad. She tells Devlin

about relationship that she had with a lover long time ago.

Plot:

Rebecca tells Devlin, who seems to be her husband, about a lover she had a long time

ago. Her lover tried to suffocate her once, when he caught for her throat. Devlin thinks

that her lover wanted to kill her, but Rebecca denies it. Devlin wants to know how her

lover is, and he asks her a lot of things about him. Rebecca speaks well about her lover

and she says that he loved her. For this reason, Rebecca is in love with her lover and she

does not feel anything for Devlin. At the end of the play, Rebecca tells a story about a

baby, and she says that someone stole her baby. To conclude with, the echo appears to

say the last words that Rebecca says.

Setting:

The play sets up in a house which is situated in the countryside. It has got a big window

from which you can see the garden, two lamps and two cupboards. It is a simple, closed

and rural place.

Time:

The play takes place in summer. It develops in the present (present simple and present

continuous), because when the author speaks about time he uses adverbials such as

“now” or “at present”.

Literary devices: Style

It is written in prose, with an informal language. There are a lot of pauses and silences

in the middle of sentences, and the language used is very simple, in order to make the

reading easier.

Personal Opinion:

I like this play but I think the end is quite difficult to understand because I do not know

why Rebecca persues a man and a boy. I do not really know if Rebecca has got a baby

or not. For this reason, I cannot explain any conclusion about this play. However, when

I read some dialogues I could imagine that Rebecca had a baby and she was sad because

someone stole her baby.