In Harold Pinter's Moonlight, discordant scenes create a state of transition for the characters, who are dealing with the death of family patriarch Andy. Throughout the show, Pinter sets up scenes that would not logically fit into a linear story. The old friends reappear and converse with Andy, his wife and their two children. One daughter, stuck at age 16, provides comments from a "third area." Sons Fred and Jake deny that their father is dying and ignore their mother's attempts to contact them. Pinter provides these scenes to suggest that death is a process of overcoming a limit - death will be a "new horizon" for Andy, as Bel (twice) suggests (p. 46) - but some limits overcome in the past cannot never be surpassed. be revisited. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayThe first suggestion of discord is marked by Maria's appearance to Jake and Fred when she describes, in a long speech, her relationships with Bel, Andy, and her husband Ralph (p. 15). Although the captions suggest he is speaking directly to Jake and Fred, his words suggest otherwise. They do not interrupt her as she openly reveals a long-standing "great affection" for Andy (p. 16). “How he danced,” he says. "One of the great waltzes. An elegance and grace now gone. ... And he looked you directly in the eyes. Unshakeable. ... But I was young in those days" (p. 16). Maria, who has had affairs with both Andy and Bel, adds: "Your mother was wonderfully young and awakened at all times. I... I have to say... particularly when I saw your mother being whirled on the floor by your father... I felt it sprouting everywhere" (p. 16-17). At the end of his monologue, Jake and Fred exit the scene entirely, and the play returns to Andy's bedroom again. Indeed, although Mary is speaking to the young people, there is no indication that they hear her, or even notice that she has entered the scene. Considering the scope of what he is telling them, one would normally expect his children to react to his speech. Yet they ignore her while continuing to pretend that their father is not dying. Ralph, Jake and Fred's next visitor, is aware that his entrance is equally nonsensical. He, like his wife, speaks to them in a long tirade, without receiving either interruptions or answers. He tells them that their father has wasted his life as a "thinker", drawing attention to uncertainties in the work that cannot be clarified by analysis (p 28). He says: What do you think this thought is pretending to do? Huh? It's pretending to clear things up, you see, it's pretending to clear things up. But what does it really do? ... It confuses you, it blinds you, it makes your mind go haywire, it makes you dizzy, it makes you so dizzy that at the end of the day you don't know if you're on your ass or with your balls elbow, you don't know if you're going or You come. (p. 28) Death in Moonlight similarly challenges intellectual reasoning. If death is a new horizon, as Bel suggested, "is it infinite? What's the weather like?" (p. 46) Andy, the thinker, as he dies, seeks reassurance and certainty as concepts become more difficult to understand. A joint appearance by Ralph and Maria at Andy's bedside is just as unreliable as their previous visits to their children. This time, however, the couple considers the reactions of the dying man and his wife, but the interaction doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the play. For example, Andy tells Bel near the beginning of the play that he "ran into Maria the other day, the day before [he] got shot" and that she invited him to her apartment for "a slice of plumduff ” (p. 18 ). However, when she and Ralph appear on theon her deathbed, Maria says, "Centuries have passed. We don't live here anymore, obviously" (p. 68). Andy, therefore, could imagine Maria, in one or both cases. More likely, though, they seem to speak from a gray area between reality and fantasy, suddenly appearing after Andy and Bel mention it; the dying man seems to have evoked them by thinking about his relationship with Maria, Bel's relationship with Maria and his football matches with Ralph, the referee. The stage directions are vague about when Maria and Ralph enter and where they are. And, when they arrive, Andy denies having a past with them. "I was a public servant. I had no past. I don't remember any past. Nothing ever happened," he insists (p. 70). He does not behave as if he were in the presence of the woman "without whom he cannot die" (p. 38). Maria and Ralph's entry, then, serves as a direct analogue to the new and uncertain "horizon" of death. Andy asks, “The big question is, will I cross [the horizon] as I die or after I die?” (p. 46) As time passes in the play, Andy is pushing boundaries. Bridget has also crossed a line and it is unclear where she is speaking from; Andy's youngest daughter is overshadowed by both the stage lights and her cryptic monologues. Furthermore, although in one scene (a flashback) she is depicted as only four years younger than her older brother, in the rest of the play she is 12 years younger than him. Bridget admits, "I am hidden. ... Hidden but free. No one in the world can find me" (p. 22). The assumption is that Bridget died at the age of 16. However, it is now accessible to Andy, who is also dying. Andy's last words are addressed to Bridget. After asking about his dead daughter throughout the play, wondering why she didn't come to see him (and brought grandchildren who were never born), Andy asks Bel to "tell Bridget not to be afraid. Tell Bridget that I don't want her to be afraid” (p. 76). She shares the same anger at her deathbed absence that she has for Fred and Jake his parents "sleep peacefully and wake up rest... Because I know that when they look at me they see that I am all that remains of their life" (page 1). Bridget is, in fact, the bond that keeps the family members together. The brothers adore their younger sister. "Bridget would have understood. I was his brother. She understood me. She always understood my feelings," says Fred (p. 53). Jake adds, "She understood me, too." Bridget, however, is "hidden" from her brothers when they need her most. At the end of the play , Bridget provides a metaphor for the transition from life to death. She describes a house "bathed in moonlight. The house, the clearing, the alley, were all bathed in moonlight. But the inside of the house was dark and all the windows were dark. ... I stood there in the moonlight and waited for the moon to set” (p. 80). Bridget, frozen in time, has the first and last word in Moonlight, and is speaking for Andy, waiting for enlightenment on his deathbed. Andy isn't even sure if he's dying; "I don't know what it feels like to die. How does it feel?" Andy asks Bel (p. 76). He expressed doubts during the show, speculating "I personally don't think it's going to be pitch black forever because if it was pitch black forever what would be the point of going through all these unnerving charades in the first place?" (p. 46) The dying person only wants security, a “loophole,” that he can “meet himself on his return” (p. 46). Yet, before dying, he manages to reconnect with the people from his past and, in a certain sense, to confess before dying. (For example, he eventually tells Ralph that he "certainly wasn't damn good" at being a referee [p. 69]). While he waits for his life to end (his moon sets), Andy still has one brief opportunity (the moonlight..