Ms. La Trobe says it best in Virginia Woolf's Between the Acts: "It's death, death, death – when illusion fails." » (p. 180) Various characters in the novel create illusions to escape the reality that afflicts them. And these illusions are continually interrupted by other characters who, intentionally or accidentally, clear the smoke and blow real air into the dreamers' faces. Ms. La Trobe is probably right: when the illusion fails, it is probably death. But she also probably went too far: Between the Acts reveals to us the resilience of illusion and the difference between an interrupted dream and a destroyed dream. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay The library scene in Pointz Hall is fraught with illusions created and broken. We first see old Bart dozing in his chair, dreaming of "himself, a young man in a helmet, and in the sand a hoop of ribs, and in the shadow of the rock, savages"; and in his hand a rifle. (p. 17) It is a poignant juxtaposition: a tired old man in his comfortable armchair in his sheltered home in England and the same man, many years earlier, undomesticated in his wild India. Is it his old pistol in his hand, or just the arm of his “chintz-covered armchair”? (p. 17) Isa enters. “Am I interrupting you? she asks. (p. 18) No, Isa doesn't just interrupt, she "destroys youth and India" for Bart, tearing him away from the territory of his virile youth, the motives on which he acted instead of sleeping and fought men rather than her sister. , and pushing him back into the quiet library of Pointz Hall. Bart doesn't let Isa get away with it: "Your little boy is a cry baby," he says (p. 18). He does it to spite her, true, but he also does it to comfort himself, to remind her and himself that he can still bully someone. Bart is a classic bully with classic bully motivation. He belittles Lucy, his dim-witted sister, and scares George, his nervous young grandson, both easy targets. He is looking for a shadow of his youth, of his India, of his masculinity. He tries to escape his old man's body. Isa is also preoccupied with youth, but she doesn't try to escape her years through memory as Bart tends to do - she denies memory. Isa is “shy of books”; “for his generation, the newspaper was a book. » (p. 19) She is not interested in reading Spenser, Keats or Yeats - she cannot read anything more than a day old, she refuses to be drawn into the past. Isa is afraid of realizing her 39 years, afraid of placing them in the context of history, afraid of placing her 39 years somewhere in the ever-expanding timeline of her own life. His relationship with his children, the real young people in his life, is a heartbreaking manifestation of his abstract fear. She constantly taps on the window, trying to get their attention as they enjoy the garden outside, but they never hear her. We never see Isa interact with her children, although she talks about it. Their presence still escapes him. In the library scene, Isa escapes into a fantasy of rape, a dream of assault. For a moment, she avoids her real environment which is filled with books, old things, and goes to a place more real to her, "so real that she saw the girl on the bed - screaming and hit him in the face." (p. 20) Rape corrupts the domestic, the maternal that she hates, and perverts the stasis to which she fears falling prey until Lucy Swithin and her hammer enter and interrupt theIsa's reverie. Lucy Swithin is the third member of the trinity of illusion artists. in the library. Lucy's escape, like Bart's and Isa's, shows a fixation on time, but while Bart seeks to return to the past and Isa desires to erase the past completely, Lucy longs to unite the past with the present and the future - to connect everyone and everything. throughout history and prehistory. Hence his faith in the Christian God, Creator of all, Supervisor, Unifier. Lucy walks into the library, giddy, talking about nailing a sign to the barn to raise money for the Church. She's afraid the rain will force the next competition indoors. “We can only pray,” she said. (p. 23) Third blow to an illusion in the library: "and provide umbrellas," Bart retorts sarcastically, mocking Lucy's faith. (p. 23) And the destruction of the protective illusion has come full circle: Bart is interrupted by Isa; Isa is interrupted by Lucy; and now Lucy is crushed by Bart's bullying. And again: “What is the origin – the origin – of this?” she asks, referring to the practice of knocking on wood. “Superstition,” he replies. She is slightly hurt “because once again he has dealt a blow to her faith,” attempting to destroy the shelter of her illusion and expose her to reality. (p. 25) And throughout this scene, as everyone plays their part in creating and interrupting the illusions, he looks out the window, “[seven] times in a row” (p. 22). in front of each other and in front of their immediate environment, an environment so hostile to their delusions. Mrs. La Trobe perfectly captures their feeling later in the novel: “O, the torture of these interruptions! (p. 79) These interruptions destroy the fantasy and return dreamers to the reality they seek to avoid. Enter Ms. Manresa, active and dynamic, into their bubble. It reinforces illusions. Isa “destroys youth and India” for Bart, but doesn’t Mrs. Manresa “give back old Barthélemy his spice islands, his youth? (p. 41) For this, he is grateful to her, he is captivated by her, he even lends himself to her superstitious game. By counting their cherry pits, Mrs. Manresa confirms that she is a plowman, a “wild child of nature” (p. 50); Bart discovers he is a thief. The life that Mrs. Manresa brings to Pointz Hall “[makes] old Bart feel young.” (p. 43) She “grants youth to [Isa]” with her gaze (p. 41), too. However, Ms. Manresa's illusion, her game, is that of sex, where she plays against other "conspirators" of her own sex (but not out of malice) for the temporary affections of men. (p. 41) She recognizes Isa's youth, but she cannot let Isa know it. Manresa's escape from monotony lies in his highly sexualized action. “She said it, she did it, not me”: everyone feels it in her presence. (p. 41) This is because Manresa's illusion is external: she draws everyone into her game, she makes them all players, while people like Bart, Lucy and Isa keep their illusions, mostly internal. Manresa laughs, chats, puts on makeup and “overdresses for a picnic.” (p. 41) She flirts with Bart and Giles and they play along, captivated. We don't know the real Mrs. Manresa at all; or maybe the real Mrs. Manresa is exactly what we know: a woman who perpetually plays the role of seductress. Perhaps Ms. Manresa, the truest illusionist in Between the Acts, is also the truest character because she does not try to hide her illusions. She wears them like she wears her rubies and emeralds. The scale of Ms. Manresa's delusions is matched only by that of Ms. La Trobe. With her play, Ms. La Trobe attempts to force her audience to.