Arcadia Lesson Plan

For the first time in Scene 7, the characters from the 19th century appear onstage at the same time as the modern characters? What effect does this have on the narrative?

Seeing the characters onstage together allows the audience to see even more parallels between the characters. It creates several moments of extreme poignancy—Hannah talks about Thomasina dying in a fire just before her seventeenth birthday, and just a moment later she enters, at that exact age. Similarly, the final moment where Hannah and Gus dance at the same time as Thomasina and Septimus hammers home many of the crucial themes of the play in a single sad moment.

What is the significance of...