Between The Acts

One of the central themes in the novel is the necessity for people to be open to introspection and contemplating their identities—this is the message that Miss La Trobe tries to relay to the village. As the pageant’s director, Miss La Trobe’s mission is to get the audience to introspect and recognize their similarities with each other and with the characters in the pageant, who represent various times in English history. At the end of the play, the play’s narrator encourages the audience to “calmly consider ourselves. Ourselves” (94). The narrator wants the audience to know that they all share their humanity despite their many differences; they all have measures of darkness and goodness within them. Miss La Trobe and the actors use the mirrors to drive this point, but most of the audience is reluctant to engage in this reflection.

Various characters in the novel exhibit differing degrees of self-awareness. Miss La Trobe is a highly self-aware character. She is also aware of how other people see her, and she knows she is an outcast. Isa is also highly introspective and aware of her true feelings. She recognizes her emotions and feels them strongly, and she also enjoys thinking deeply about ideas and art, evidenced by how she continues to think about the pageant after she returns to Pointz Hall. She discusses it with Mrs. Swithin, concluding that Reverend Streatfield’s interpretation of the play is both correct and not—he only sees the message of the play as people being the same even though they have differences, but Isa thinks the play is about more than just this. This shows that she has deeply contemplated the collective nature of people and also thinks about her own inner life, analyzing the message of the play within this context.

Mrs. Swithin is open to introspection but struggles to see herself clearly. She is curious and asks Isa about the play’s meaning, but her inability and refusal to delve too deeply into her core self and confront troubling things in her inner life make it difficult for her to look at herself in the mirror. In contrast, Mrs. Manresa does not appear introspective but nevertheless accepts herself completely. She feels no shame about who she is, so she is able to look at the mirrors with ease. Other characters in the play—like Bart and Giles—are neither interested in introspection nor uncovering their true selves, viewing these ideas as weak.

Between the Acts is set in June 1939, shortly before the official start of World War II, though there are already rumblings of violence and political standoffs between nations. The villagers do their best to focus on the pageant and raise money for the church’s electricity, hoping to enjoy the day. However, the war looms over them, and small reminders of this threat present themselves, creating a cloud of unease in various parts of the novel.

When Giles returns to the village from London, he is troubled because he has heard about rising tensions in the continent. The news that “sixteen men had been shot, others prisoned, just over there, across the gulf, in the flat land which divided them from the continent” makes him angry and sullen (27). This makes him especially irritable when he encounters his aunt’s enthusiasm for the pageant and the other characters’ apparent apathy to the impending threat of war. He is filled with “rage [at the] old fogies who sat and looked at views over coffee and cream” while Europe is “bristling with guns, poised with planes,” and “at any moment guns would rake that land into furrows; planes splinter Bolney Minster into smithereens and blast the Folly” (31). Giles finds it hard to enjoy the domestic environment of Pointz Hall and pretend to have any interest in the pageant when a war that will involve England is about to rage across the whole of Europe. He dreads the possibility of England’s beauty being destroyed and believes that the villagers could be taking the impending war more seriously and not ignoring it. He wants to play an active role in the war, thinking of himself as a strong man who will actively defend England from the Germans. However, the rest of the villagers and his family continue with the pageant as usual.

The pageant, too, ignores the coming war. However, this changes when Reverend Streatfield makes an announcement about the need for electric lights in the church. As he is speaking, he is interrupted as “twelve aeroplanes in perfect formation like a flight of wild duck came overhead. That was the music. The audience gaped; the audience gazed” (96). This moment underscores the serious threat of war that will not spare even this seemingly safe village amid its pastoral setting. After the warplanes depart, the audience is uneasy—they can no longer be concerned only about their personal lives or their involvement in the pageant since the war has arrived at their doorstep. However, after this moment passes, the villagers try to enjoy the rest of the pageant. Still, they cannot shake off the knowledge that the war might cause great devastation and that it is now unavoidable. This is the moment they realize that their lives have changed, and their idyllic existence is under threat.