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This study guide for Harold Pinter's Ashes to Ashes offers summary and analysis on themes, symbols, and other literary devices found in the text. Explore Course Hero's library of literature materials, including documents and Q&A pairs.
- First Memory, The Lover
- Second Memory, The Factory
- Third Memory, Babies
- Fourth Memory, The Pen
- Fifth Memory, A Return to The Train Station and The Strangling
- Memory Six, Walking Into The Sea, Mental Elephantiasis
- Memory Seven, Return to The Train Station
- Memory Eight, The Cinema
- Memory Nine, Strangling and Drowning
Ashes to Ashesbegins with a 1996-era couple described as being in their 40s. They are on the ground floor of a house in the country. The room is set with two arm chairs and two lamps. A garden is visible beyond. The couple is silent. Devlin stands with a drink in his hand. Rebecca says seemingly out of the blue that her former lover used to engage ...
Devlin pursues Rebecca and continues to seek detailed information, but she evades his questions. She is distracted and is lost in her own thoughts and memories. Rebecca is rooted in some other reality. Sometimes she tells Devlin she's not his "darling" and sometimes forgets that comment entirely. She says she can't tell Devlin what her lover looked...
Rebecca veers to a new memory of her former lover taking her to the local train station. Once there he tore "all the babies from the arms of their screaming mothers." This detour into a dark memory surprises Devlin. He asks her if this really happened. Instead of answering Rebecca asks if he knows she's upset about a siren she heard a short time ba...
Devlin attempts to soothe Rebecca and suggests the police are busy. He claims they are always moving back and forth between people taking care of everyone and sometimes carrying codes. Rebecca seems startled and puzzled by the busy police with codes. She does not pursue that response but sidetracks into a coming trip outdoors and wonders who will a...
Devlin is horrified by the idea of God sinking in quicksand. He begins ranting, "Be careful how you talk about God. He's the only God we have. If you let him go, he won't come back." Devlin postulates that the universe without God is like a brilliant game between two great soccer teams without an audience to watch the game. Devlin's argument is tha...
Rebecca does not respond to Devlin's fears and questions but recites a new set of memories from a time when she recalls living in a house in Dorset. Out the window she sees a "crowd of people, headed to the sea." She follows their progress from her place at the window. She goes to the top of the house when they are out of view where she can see gui...
Rebecca sinks deeper into her memories. She describes a walk through a cold city as she goes back to the train station with a voice calling her "sweetheart." At last she's reunited with her lover only to find he's walking through the station ripping babies out of their mothers' arms. Devlin's response is to change the subject. He asks whether Rebec...
Rebecca says she went to the cinema after meeting Kim. Her memories of the cinema echo the style and tone of all her other memories. They are foreign to her ordinary life. Rebecca talks about the cinema and describes a man ahead of her who appears to be dead. The mood and tone of her cinema memory are disturbing to Devlin who attempts to scold her ...
Rebecca remembers being in a high place in a small town at night. She watches an old man and a young boy carrying suitcases as they attempt to flee the town. In time she notices they are being followed by a woman with a baby. Rebecca sinks deeper into her memory. The street is icy. The man and boy move ahead but the woman is afraid and moves cautio...
Who is Angie? Who is the body? What do Quinn and Kate have to do with one another? Was there an incestuous relationship? By weaving these multiple mysteries together, Hoag attempts to create a...
The best study guide to Ashes on the planet, from the creators of SparkNotes. Get the summaries, analysis, and quotes you need.
As the novel opens, Kate is trying to start a new life in Minneapolis after losing her child, her husband, and her job with the FBI. Her travails make her an immediately sympathetic character, for...
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